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#and with that he nearly rips the universe apart when he loses her
tardxsblues · 1 year
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Wow! We're doing charm as well now, are we? Which one of us is dying?
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reqxxyt · 11 months
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distance does nothing g.r
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pairings: george r. x f!reader
warnings: some angst
masterlist requests open!
[unedited]
_________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐
I met George when I was only 5 seeking friends in a new neighborhood not expecting to find the one person I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to. He was 6, with bright blue eyes and a cheeky smile that extended to his eyes when he offered me a game of tag. I lost. I never was much of an athlete, only willing to when forced. 
Around the age of 14 and 15, we grew closer as I cheered for him during races already being able to tell this would lead to something great. I was his #1 supporter and he was my best friend. I only got into relationships at the age of 17, having my first kiss with my first boyfriend that I met during one of my classes but separated due to not communicating much. 
During university, George had taken racing more serious while I stayed studying in our hometown preparing for my own future still cheering for him while staying in touch with George. It was only the last year of University where George would start to ignore my messages, declining my calls, and cutting off our weekly facetime. 
Strange. I wondered, not wanting to ask too much of our friendship only being able to imagine how difficult it must be to live the grand life of an F1 race car driver. But either way, I anticipated his next break, knowing it aligned with my own winter break and we could finally talk. Just like when we were younger. 
But that didn’t happen. I tried calling him, it would send me straight to voicemail. My heart tugged, feeling it ache as tears started free falling wondering if I did anything wrong that would cause this to ever happen. I went over our whole friendship that entire day, not being able to focus on my classes that were nearing the end of the semester. 
I only finally gathered the courage to go to his old home, having not seen his parents in a while. They were like a second family to me but it seemed like loosing connection to George had made me lose all connection with his family. I knocked on the door, softly but loud enough to heard feeling my own heart pound against my chest as I waited for anyone to open the door. Wishing there would be a chance that it was George on the other side. 
“Sweetheart, it’s been so long” the hug only lasted a second with a bright smile being exchanged on each others end. 
“It really has” I agreed, not sure if I should ask about their youngest son. “Have you seen George? I tried contacting him but he has’t been responding” 
The older women frowned not knowing what had happened between the two, always loving the little girl and the constant blabbing about her from her son. “No, I’m sorry. Did he tell you?”
“Tell me what” now I grew more worried. Did something happen that he didn’t tell me? 
“He’s moving to Monaco” she said upset at the thought that the two who seemed like soulmates would suddenly stop talking right before George moved. Clear sadness flowed over my face trying to control my emotions from spreading to harshly. 
“Oh” was all I could let out. He didn’t tell me he was leaving. The boy I had met when I was 5 and knew practically everything about me was leaving. I said my farewells, wishing her the best while she carried a pitiful smile. 
The minute I entered my car, tears flowed down my face not able to control them no longer. My heart felt ripped, the boy I had known for nearly 20 years is leaving. The boy I had just started to grow feelings for, had my heart set on, is leaving. 
Right after the sadness flowed, anger rose as memories passed by as if reliving them. I pounded against the wheel, not caring if it let out a honk or two. I wanted to scream but nothing was let out, only quiet sobs where heard, my hands fell to my lap and after almost half an hour I left. 
I left to where I thought I felt the most comfortable. But being alone in my apartment somehow made it worse. The realization that I would be able to do nothing to prevent his distance, thinking he no longer cared about me. 
The next morning I tried to make myself feel better by going out for coffee before realizing I had taken the wrong path, being entertained by my own thoughts that led me to the first place we met. The park filled with dandelions. 
“Make a wish” I giggled, handing the strange looking flower to George. He looked at me with a strange look as I waited before he finally caved in and blew the the small petals (or whatever their called). I wanted to ask what he wished for, so desperately, but I knew if he told me it wouldn’t come true. 
“Can I finally tell you what I wished for?” an all too familiar voice was heard behind me.
I stood frozen, thinking I had to have been hallucinating. Too much wine can do something to a person the morning after. But then I felt his presence beside me, the same cologne I gave him for christmas last year. My eyes started to water again but I suppressed them not wanting to humiliate myself further. 
“I wished to be with you” he said after not earning a response. I looked beside me, having to look up. After a couple of silent moments, he finally looked beside him, making direct eye contact. “That was all I wanted growing up” 
“So why leave?” I didn’t want to sound selfish. It was the best career option for him. But what I mean was; why leave me hanging? He frowned, turning his body to fully face me but I stood still. “Why completely distance yourself George?”
“I was scared. A coward” he shrugged wishing he could get a full view of the girls face. The girl he had been in love with since 17. But never realized until now. He wasn’t even sure how to tell her now, that all he wanted was her with him still. “I regret everytime you called and I washed as it rang but didn’t answer”
A single tear dropped from my eye but I quickly swiped it, not wanting to showcase my emotions but failing miserably. I took in a deep breath before turning, putting my hands in my pockets. But looking at him made it all the more worse. I wanted to ask why but he beat me to it.
“I would make the same wish again” he bent down, picking up a single dandelion but handing it to me. “What do you wish for?”
I couldn’t say anything just accepting the dandelion being handed before finally, while twirling the dandelion whispering “stay”.
He knew what I meant when hearing those words, not intending them to sound selfish. “I only distanced myself because I was scared. Scared that I loved you in a way I didn’t think was possible. I fell in love with you the past years, I was scared you didn’t feel the same way so i closed myself off but that didn’t work, I just couldn’t get mind off of you” 
“Well I do” I shrugged, feeling my own body walk a step closer. “You can go to Monaco. Just never leave me”
“I would never make the same mistake” 
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dirtyvulture · 5 months
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😎 Ok so you’re right but about me not hibernating but it is your fault dirtyvulture ( I have ADHD so I have hyper fixations and your so good I am hyper fixated on your AUs ) because you keep me constantly thinking and heading canoning and having to post it . I have tried to hibernate but nooo your too amazing ( in all seriousness I have tried to spaced things out so I didn’t annoy people but I do feel loved that you say that I am always welcome) and now asking me to keep the carnivores feed 😤🙄. So now here I with my last head canon I can formulate until I have more content ( I will reserve my smutty head canon and the sergeant Romanoff angst until I have more information. Or at least until people or vulture begs for them) . This is some reasons for the cuteness in some of Wolverine R actions . In Canon when Wolverine manifested their abilities and killed Thomas Logan after he broke in, killed their father and was trying to take their mother it was with uncharacteristic fury and brutality.
Originally R ( YN could be her birth name or one she takes up later in life ) had a higher more feminine sounding voice and really long thick hair, as opposed to the gruffer lower pitched voice and short tufty hair that she has now. R was a very happy and playful girl who loved to laugh and sing , a girl who had a frail and sickly disposition ( she was known as little bird or little songbird) but was very gentle with a protectiveness in her to the ones she loves. R’s canon event happens and that is when her beastly feral side starts, R also starts to drink and smoke a bit ( not nearly as much now only here and there at this time). R’s old friend ( or love or how ever vulture wants to do this ) loved R’s singing and her long hair. They also hated R’s drinking and smoking ( much like Nat hates R’s ) so R stopped for them ( like she did for Nat) with the same ticks as mentioned but not nearly as bad as the ones Nat has to deal with. When R loses the old friend she lets out a PRIMAL YELL that RIPs something inside of her apart, all the drinking ( especially the kinda whiskey that burns on the way down ) and smoking streps out her throat giving her the voice she has today( she still has a lovely singing voice) .She also cut her hair off that day never letting it grow out again , can’t stand looking at her self with long hair again. All of R’s beastly and feral tendencies went into full swing after that day but she still did maintain her old self’s gentleness and all the good qualities that has been so buried within time.
Nat didn’t notice it at first but definitely noticed it in car but when R started to hum songs and when she sang a bit she had traces of her old higher pitched voice in it. When R was being and speaking gently to Nat before the confrontation with the RR agents, when R spoke gently to her at the bar and at the cabin. But when we do our grunts or were being more aggressive our voice is all gruff lower pitched. When we did our awkward smile and our actions it was in part because we were embarrassed because we were caught up in vibes but it was also because we wanted to ease the tension with Nat ( R was so used to being called a monster, a beast, an animal after people see her claws but R didn’t want Nat scared) , Baby girl was trying 😭. But in that awkward smile and acts Nat noticed traces of the girl or person that used to be ( or was just really buried deep within) .
I am so honored and happy my fic is on your mind 24/7 because same 😂 You're in luck because another part in the Sergeant Beef universe is being posted this week, so hopefully you'll stop by and share those thoughts later :)
I love all the backstory you've come up with Wolverine!R :) But R is definitely a softy on the inside, it just doesn't seem obvious at first. Perhaps with some time she'll open up more to Nat and something special will blossom between them.
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n-slayaaaaa · 2 years
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Good Days
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Summary: In the midst of picking up the pieces of his shattered life, Peter meets a girl who shows him that life is worth the hassle
Pairings: Peter Parker x black!reader, Peter Parker x reader
Warnings: MAJOR NO WAY HOME SPOILERS!!!!!! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET, RUN AWAY NOW!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. This is a delicate mixture of pain ... bc ouch the ending, but some fluff so we're not completely depressed. Mention of drinking, sexual harassment, violence.
Requested by: @nina-a-pines
***
It had been three years since May Parker died.
Three years since Peter Parker was wiped from everyone's minds and memories, including his own. He's tried everything to find himself and rebuild and it's all been for nothing. The healing process seemed to hit another stall in August when Ned and MJ headed to Boston to complete yet another semester at MIT. Even though they had no memory of him, he found comfort in being a regular at the coffee shop MJ worked at when she came home for break. Being able to talk to her and look into her eyes when he was having a bad day.
Every day was a bad day.
It was October and his former friends had been long gone. Without the distraction of them he was forced to look at what remained of his life, and stomach the fact that the three year anniversary of May's death was approaching. Every week for years he dropped fresh flowers at her resting place. Careful to not run into Happy again, the first time brought his stomach to knots and couldn't experience it another time.
Peter Parker was on auto-pilot and never expected it to end.
His Spider-Man duties had become even more of a strain since he had no help and no special suit. If something ripped, he had to sew it. If he got a cut, which he did often, he would have to stitch it. His health, much like the weight of the world, was now on his shoulders and it was becoming too much. Until one chilly Fall night.
Peter's job as a photographer at The Daily Bugle had frustrated him to no end. The increasing need for photos of Spider-Man triggered his rage, nearly resulting in losing his job. He was trying to hail four cabs to take him home and they all ignored him. Meaning he had to walk and not swing himself home all the way across town. Then, when he finally did arrive at his apartment, the key snapped inside of the lock due to the mixture in his anger and strength, leaving him locked out until his landlord decided to let him in.
Which could take god knows how long.
So he decided to take himself to the nearby bar before he ripped all of his hair out of his head. It was fairly busy for a Friday night, crawling with college kids since Columbia University wasn't too far away. His social meter was running out by the minute but the least he could do was finish the Jack and Coke he paid eleven dollars for.
"What the fuck?" He heard a woman's voice say behind him. His hand gripped the edge of the bar in efforts to restrain himself. He was off the clock. Whatever was happening was not his problem right now. Spider-Man was not in this bar. "You just smacked my ass and thought I wasn't going to do anything?"
As Peter reached for the remainder of his drink, a hand with acrylic nails snatched it from his sights. He whipped his head around just in time to see a young woman throw his drink in the face of the scum who just harassed her. Whatever was happening was now his problem.
"I hope your eyes burn like hell, creep." She shouted at the guy who was now screaming in pain. The creep raised a hand in efforts to strike her but was stopped by more than a drink this time.
Peter gripped the man's wrist tightly, irritation apparent in his voice and face. "Don't even think about it."
Before the guy could fight back, a punch was landed on his face knocking him square in the jaw and stumbling to the floor. "Piece of shit. If you're gonna try to hit me, just know you will get knocked on your ass." The girl growled one more time before turning her attention to Peter. Her once narrowed eyes now turned doe-like in the realization of what just happened. "Oh my god ... oh my god I am so sorry. That was so unlike me, please let me buy you another drink."
Peter blinked. His day had already been hectic but witnessing a bar fight like this was the cherry on top. Now that he gathered his bearings he was finally able to get a good look at the girl in the bar. Her curly hair was slightly disheveled after the fight but it still framed her face well. She tucked her hair behind her pierced ears and took a nervous breath.
"Are you okay?" Was the first thing that came from his lips. Trying his best not to stare and seem like the creep who was laying on the floor of the bar.
She nodded, scratching her nose with her white acrylic nail. "Uh yeah, yeah ... just shaken up I guess." She glanced down at her right hand. "And my knuckles are swelling up, that's great."
"Here, take my seat." He moved out of the way. "Bartender, I need a glass of ice and security to take that lowlife out of here." Peter's attention was now fully on her and he couldn't imagine what she must be feeling. "You gotta ice that before it get's worse and even more inflamed. I'm Peter by the way." He held a hand out to her.
The girl blinked. "Sounds like you get into a lot of fights, Peter. My name is Y/N, but, if you wanna call me an alcohol thief I understand that too." Y/N shook his hand with her good one before sighing. "I can not believe that happened."
"Are you here with friends, Y/N? Anybody I could call-?"
"No, no, of course the night I go out by myself somebody wants to get handsy." Y/N frowned, grabbing cubes from the glass of ice and holding them on her hand. "Thank you for helping by the way. I'm so sorry again for throwing your drink in his face."
Peter chuckled to himself. "Don't mention it. I feel like you put it to good use and the asshole deserved it." Before he could speak again, Peter closed his mouth in shock. For the first time in three years he felt relaxed, the feeling he never thought would visit him again. 
He took a seat next to the curly haired girl, grabbing a napkin and wrapping fresh ice in it before placing it on Y/N’s hand. They talked about her for a while, how she was wrapping up her last semester at Columbia as a psychology major, her dreams of opening a therapy agency for low-income families and people. Peter felt himself loosening up and enjoying her company until she said the dreaded question. 
“Tell me about yourself, Peter?” She said in a soft voice. Her eyes watched as Peter went rigid at the question. He thought his body language was undetectable but she knew something was wrong. She knew she said the wrong thing. “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Peter pretended to laugh it off. The truth was he had no idea how to answer her question. Three years of trying to find out who Peter Parker is and he still had no luck. “I think that's just a difficult subject because I’m still trying to find out who I am.”
“Then I’ll answer for you, Peter Parker.” Y/N placed the now melted ice napkin on the counter. Turning her body to face the brunette man in front of her. “I think that you’re a caring person. You will do anything to help and protect not only the people you love but a stranger like me. I think you’re kind of a loner, not by choice, but something affected you so deeply that you distance yourself from people. I think you need a friend...” She trailed off as she noticed tears building in Peter’s eyes. He tried to blink them away but one fell, and she caught it with her index finger before wiping it away. “I think I want to be your friend.”
She hopped off of the stool and left a tip for the bartender while Peter gathered himself and his feelings. “Tell you what, how about we get out of here and I’ll make you another drink at my apartment. I promise to stop being a therapist and show you that I’m actually a funny person.” Y/N held her hand out for him to grab. 
Peter looked at her hand before grabbing it, questioning himself if it was a good idea to get involved with someone again. He wanted to stop being scared, lonely, and hoped that this would held him let go of some of that pain. He grabbed her hand gently. “You know, it’s dangerous to invite strangers to your home?” He smiled. 
“Oh please, you saw how I handled that guy. Clearly I can take care of myself, Peter Parker.” Y/N smiled, pulling him out of the bar and down the cold streets of New York. 
But for Peter, the streets didn’t seem as cold anymore. Aunt May would tell him all the time when he was younger that the hard days came so we could appreciate the good ones just a little extra. He never understood the saying until now, as it seemed his good days were on the horizon.  
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26 with Loki🥺
To Love The Man, To Love The Monster
Loki Laufeyson x F!Reader
Prompt: The Way I Said I Love You #26 - As I clutch at your sleeve and beg you not to leave.
Warnings: 18+. A whole shit ton of angst. Jotun Loki. Themes of betrayal. Smut. Unprotected PIV sex. Interspecies sex but it's not really detailed.
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There's an irony to this Loki supposes.
The God of Mischief, the silvertongue serpent and weaver of a thousand lies discovering his entire existence has been exactly that.
It seems almost poetic or maybe just comedic - the universe saving such an elaborate joke for someone who has made an art out of tricking others and watching in glee when the penny finally drops. Maybe he would laugh too if it weren't for the poison in his head, seeping into his heart and painting the veins and it's chambers black with the sticky drip of tar.
A lie - it has all been nothing but a lie.
He wasn't a Prince, a beloved son - he was nothing more than a pawn in a centuries old feud. Something to be used to keep an enemy of Odin's under thumb, someone to be planted on a broken throne in another realm when the time comes and puppeted for the benefit of the Asgardian king.
He feels the grief of it in his chest - the white hot sting of betrayal slicing at his lungs. He's almost not surprised that his father would do such a thing but he could have never anticipated such a thing from his mother. From Frigga. The woman who had taught him everything - who made him feel special and understood as a child when he had been ashamed of how different he was from Thor.
It was all a lie.
Something cracks deep within him. An agonised howl ripping from his chest as he throws his wine glass. It shatters somewhere he doesn't see - the harsh sound splintering him further until the rage floods his eyes crimson. He sends furniture hurtling into the wall, flashes of magnificent green bursting apart mirrors and vases as his mind spins out like a loosening screw.
Who else was in on it? How many people looked at him and whispered behind his back. Did they pity him - mock him? The monster pretending to be royalty.
Had Thor known before he was banished? Was he to lose his brother all over again to this discovery.
And what about you?
Loki stops dead then. The violent rasps of his breath piercingly loud in the sudden silence. He had longed for you for as long as he could remember, the beautiful warrior with a mind sharper than her blade and a hidden appetite for mischief. But you had always been distant, wary even of being too friendly with the princes, always watching rather than joining in.
There was nothing that ever got by you.
That's why Odin had trusted you as he did, why he sought your opinion on matters when others would have dismissed you. He feels his gut twist - it had been Odin who had taken it upon himself to introduce you personally to him, a sly twinkle in the old man's eyes as he'd not so subtly nudged Loki towards you. He had found it strange back then, the allfather playing matchmaker for his youngest son, but now it makes sense - a perfect, sickening sense that sends him crashing to his knees as the grief swirls and chokes him.
You knew.
**
And of course you lie beautifully - flawlessly even. Of course each word drips from your tongue like silk - morphing into the sweetest dagger to slash what remains of his heart to ribbons.
He's avoided you. The confrontation with Odin had left a part of him broken - a tear in his heart that could only grow with every unforgiving pull on that bitter thread. He had nearly unravelled when he'd faced Frigga and though it shames him, he knows that facing you would be his ruin.
But you refused to be ignored or to ignore the whispers that he's become something dark and twisted - that he's the reason for Odin's fall and Thor's banishment, the prophesied tale of the second son bringing the downfall of Asgard beginning to come to fruition. You come to him despite all of his efforts, his orders to bar your entry from the throne room where he's locked himself away, eyes shining with a concern he desperately wishes to believe comes from a place of love if only he doesn't know better.
Loki, my love, what is wrong? Don't shut me out, talk to me I beg you.
He wants to hate you, to rage and seethe as you stand before him with the audacity to continue this charade of caring but the truth is he is more furious with himself - his self-hatred unfurling with a vengeance. How foolish could he be to believe you had ever truly loved him, of course it had all been a ruse carefully crafted by Odin to keep him clueless, to keep the beastly side of his nature content and subdued until it could be of use. He has always been destined to be the villain, a dark stain on Asgard's legacy.
You would never love someone like him.
"Just leave... please."
"Loki-"
"LEAVE!"
"Not until you tell me what has happened to make you like this!"
He snaps then - a furious snarl caught in his throat as he surges from the golden throne to loom over you with eyes wild and sharp like shattered ice. "You. Darling girl." He spits - teeth bared. "You have made me like this - you and Odin and the treacherous little scheme you cooked up to keep me as a pathetic docile pet."
There's a bloated stretch of silence - weighed heavy with his laboured breaths and the palpable tang of your confusion. Loki watches the furrow of your brow, the slight gape of your mouth as you shake your head, disturbed.
"Keep you as a pet." You echo quietly - dumbfounded - as you blink at him. "Loki, what in the nine realms are you talking about?"
He studies you carefully, narrowed gaze like he's trying to figure out how best to break you, the quickest way to make you crack and confess, before he shakes his head as his lips tug into a cruel smirk.
"There's no need to be so humble little dove." Loki purrs, voice lowering to a dark grit as he circles you slowly. "You're a clever little actress you know, you had me completely fooled. How much was Odin paying you for such a talent I wonder?"
You glare at him, the subtle twitch of your hands betraying your waning patience. "I haven't been paid for anything. You aren't making any damn sense."
When he chuckles it's humourless - packed with ice as he strides forward to clasp your chin between cold fingers, the edge of his thumb ghosting the curved pillow of your mouth. You're still so beautiful as you stare at him worriedly, a pang of longing spearing through his gut that he stamps down before leaning in close - close enough that your eyes flutter like you're expecting him to kiss you.
"Aren't I?" He muses. "Then allow me to speak plainly. What did Odin have to offer such a righteous warrior to become the whore of a monster?"
You reel back like he's struck you, like he's buried one of his daggers deep between the hollows of your ribs only to savagely rip it back out. His brow pinches when his eyes rove over your face, there's no shame, no guilt - you look hurt - the bright sheen of tears hazing over your eyes before you rapidly blink them away for fury to take their place when realisation blooms across your face.
"How could you?" You gasp - chest heaving - breaths snagged in the suffocating tightness of your throat before they can fully be exhaled . "How can you even stand there and accuse me of being bought to love you when I have given you everything I am. I do not know who has whispered these filthy lies into your ear but maybe I should thank them for showing me what you truly think of me since you believe them so willingly."
His wrath bursts then - ignites hot and ugly in his chest as he lunges to grasp your wrists in a bone crushing hold and shakes you until you cry out in shock.
His tone is a scathing hiss, but beneath it all there's something jagged - something irreparably broken slicing through his rage. "Do not try and twist this on me, you are not the one who has been betrayed! You were not made to believe you were so much more than a disgusting monster, a nightmarish beast parents warn their children about, only to have it cruelly ripped away by the few people you thought actually cared for you!"
You try and yank yourself away, hands shoving at cold leather when he growls and snatches you tighter to his chest and then you lose it. A sob rips past your lips and your words come in tatters - shredded like they've been dragged over glass before falling from your tongue.
"I don't know what you're talking about Loki, I haven't fucking betrayed you! And you haven't ever been a monster either - at least not until now!"
If you hadn't been so close to him you would have missed it - the pain that flared bright in his eyes before they bleed to the colour of spilt rubies, the tremor of his breath before he flexes his jaw and croons dark through gritted teeth.
"You think you've seen me be a monster? Oh darling, I'll give you a monster."
**
The room grows cold immediately. Webs of ice branching along the window panes and the fog of your ragged breath misting in the air. Time seemingly halts like in a dream - those last few seconds of peace before the jump scare of panic in a nightmare. He stares into your eyes - watches the way they round and widen as the blue crawls over his skin.
"Oh my gods." You whisper.
And he should know then that something is wrong - that he's missed something vital before this moment. Your voice is fragile, tender and sad like your chords are ready to collapse from the strain of just those three words.
Loki's too far gone. Too lost to his craving for vengeance, to snatch back some of his wounded pride. He thinks of that funny little saying - it is better to be feared than loved - and well if Odin's, Frigga's, possibly Thor's and your love had all been a pretence, he'll make sure your fear is all too startlingly real.
He buries his fingers into the soft giving flesh of your arms - allows the frozen chill of his touch to seep just deep enough into your skin that you wince and clamp your teeth down on your lip to muffle a whimper. He could make you run screaming he thinks - fill you with such horror that you flee from these halls, from Asgard itself, from him. He could make you beg, make you bleed beneath sharpened teeth until your golden tears paint the marks upon his skin.
"Still want to try to pretend you love me? That you aren't disgusted." He spits and he hates the way his voice trembles - stained with shame.
He expects you to fight him, to claw and gauge at his flesh - to try and snap his bones with your bare hands so you can reach for your famed blade to skewer him where he stands. But there's nothing - no violence bursting through your veins. The look on your face is one of heartbreak, your body limp in his hold instead of poised to strike out at him to defend yourself and when the faint touch of your fingertips whisper over his jaw followed by a sad sigh of his name he jerks away from you as if scorched.
This is wrong. You shouldn't be looking at him like that. Like you're grieving for him, like you'd give anything to reach into his chest and take his pain for yourself just to ease his suffering. You shouldn't look like someone you love is hurt and so by extension, you are too. It knocks him off his axis - the cruel shadow of his features softening to something boyish and confused - something lost until he realises his devastating mistake.
He stares at you in horror, his heart plummeting like lead dropped into the wide mouth of the ocean as reality viciously slams back into him.
"You didn't know, did you?"
You don't even have to answer him, he can see it, the raw honesty in your eyes, in the emotions you'd laid bare with the trust in him to be able to decipher what is truth and what is lie as is his nature. And he'd failed. He'd allowed paranoia and insecurity to bleed into the wound Odin had created - to fester within it until it grew poisonous little seeds that once planted in his head, nearly made him hurt the woman he loves and destroy the only good thing he has in his life.
How can you stand there and tell him he isn't a monster?
"I'm sorry," He croaks - chokes on the words as his throat closes like a fist and a fierce pressure builds rapidly behind his eyes. "Darling - gods - I'm so sorry."
He feels distraught - stricken with a violent kind of shame that is tearing at his already muddled head until it's all just too much. His heart spasms painfully in his chest and his body simply gives as a sob tears from his aching throat and then for the second time in a matter of days, Loki falls broken to his knees.
The tears flood down his cheeks, turning to ice that clings to his skin and glitters in the golden light of the throne room. He tries to focus on your face, the battle of shock and agony raging across your features as you hesitate to either go to his side or to flee far from his presence. It's either the rivers of grief glossing his eyes or the famous talent you have of becoming a blank slate when in pain - but he can't predict which one you'll choose.
And though he can't blame you for wanting nothing more to do with him, he all but shatters when you turn on your heel and begin to stride towards the large doors.
No no no! Don't leave. Don't leave me, please!
He's practically blind with it, deafened by the pain and fear ravaging his body that he doesn't realise the words weren't being screamed in his head but that he'd actually cried them out into the open - into the seemingly vast space between you until you freeze and whirl back around to look at him in disbelief. Taking advantage of your surprise, he’s in front of you in an instant - pride be damned as he snatches at your sleeve, clutches your hand in the clawed cradle of his own more gently than he’s ever held anything in his life and places it over his pounding heart whilst he all but begs.
“Please. Punish me as you see fit, damn me to the misery of your silence or the fury of your blade but please don’t leave me. I’ll spend as long as I must earning your forgiveness just don’t go. I love you.”
You look at him alarmed. “Loki - hey, hey - look at me. “
He does, drinks in the sight of your face softening in response to his panic and swallows hard as you reach up to palm his cheek.
“I'm not going anywhere Loki, I just wanted to bolt the doors so we could have some privacy.” You soothe, a sad smile pulling at your lips before you murmur. “I could never leave you, you know that.”
“You should.” He mutters regretfully, an uncontrollable flare of self hatred spearing through his head as images of what he could have done to you if he had realised too late flash through his mind. “I could have killed you.”
A soft chuckle jars him out of it, his gaze narrowing as he glances at you to find the beginnings of a hesitant grin tugging at the corner of your mouth.
“You could have tried.”
He nearly laughs, nearly takes you in his arms and kiss you senseless in his awe of your sweet, forgiving heart and the dizzying burst of relief it offers but then his gaze falls upon your entwined hand pressed against his chest - the shock of ridged blue so glaringly different from your smooth skin and the sharpness of his claws softly denting the flesh.
“You cannot possibly still want to be with me like this.” He whispers, “How can you even bear to look at me.”
Your expression twists into something unreadable - a jumble of emotion all flashing too quick for his blurry vision to track but when he attempts to pull away, to disentangle his hand from yours, you hang on tight. A sharp pull of strength sending him stumbling back into you before you grip him by the collar and crush your mouth to his.
Its a messy kiss - a frantic collision as you force everything you have into it and he swallows it all down like a man dying of thirst. He should be stopping you he thinks, he’s not in control, the frigid planes of his skin could be harming you with every second that he’s pressed flush against you but when you moan into his mouth, Loki is utterly lost. There’s no way of stopping him from pinning you to his chest, his tongue thrusting past lips to lick into your mouth as his fingers sink into your hair and demand you tilt your chin to allow him better access to the sweet taste of you.
He follows every inch you attempt to draw back, a fire igniting in his belly as you breathlessly tell him in between each bruising kiss. “I’m looking at you the same way I’ve always looked at you - like you’re the man I love. And I’ll kill anyone that tries to say different.”
He drags you closer until he’s almost wrapped tight around you, his heart taking up a chaotic gallop against his ribs and a shaky exhale blowing past his lips as your words sink in and the iron-like grip of fear and self loathing are drawn out of him like poison sucked from a wound.
“Gods I fucking love you.” He groans raggedly before his lips are fused desperately to yours once more.
You smile into his kiss and then you're sinking into him, digging your nails into the soft buttery feel of his leathers and sighing airily as he sweeps you up and lowers you to the floor. He spreads you out beneath him, stretches your arms above your head and nudges your thighs open wide so he can press himself flush against you and he wants to so badly take his time and show you just how much you mean to him but then you’re looking at him with wide, glassy eyes shaded in lust - the warm tang of your love blooming beneath it’s heat - and he can’t help himself. Your clothes are gone in a burst of green, the soft rush of his seidr stirring your hair as he gently strokes the curve of your cheek and watches nervously whilst you drink in the sight of his other form naked above you.
“You're so beautiful Loki.” You breathe - your tone dipped in awe as your fingers ghost over the length of his arms like he’s something sacred.
He chokes - his eyes trailing over your face in stunned blinks as he searches for something to say, something clever, something worthy of his silvertongue title that will distract you from the way you’re cracking him open. But there’s nothing. All he has left is this feeling of being so messily stripped bare with nowhere to hide and your gaze boring down to the furthest reaches of his soul.
And Loki’s struck then with just how much he wants to be seen by you - how much he needs your love and your battle-scarred hands sunk deep into his own heart - that maybe he can live with this side of himself if someone like you can still look at him like the wonders of the universe exists within his very veins.
“You're not scared?” He checks cautiously - dropping his head to nuzzle against the heat of your palm and press a soft kiss there when you reach for him - his eyes growing dark whilst he gently skates his claws along the warm slope of your waist and your lashes flutter as your body shudders.
“Of you? Never.”
You pull him down on you - reach between your bodies to grasp and stroke him until he croaks your name and his teeth draw flecks of blood from where they’ve sank into the pillow of his lower lip. “I want you.”
And when he finally buries himself deep inside you it’s cataclysmic - it’s the soaked, fever-hot clench of your pussy stretched tight around him and your breathless gasps in his ear snatching the air from his lungs as his vision swims. He can barely pull out of you, his mind scattered like a burst star because it all feels so much more intense like this - the burn of your skin scorching him to his bones and your tongue laving over the marks on his neck , your nails rake down his back and his hips lurch with enough force that you slide up the floor and then he’s pulling you back to him and pinning your hips to the stone like he’s attempting to bury you in it.
“Loki!” You sob as your back arches and his lips bruise over the sweat slicked column of your throat and your jaw to find your own, to drink down the noises spilling from your mouth whilst he curls his tongue around yours.
He snaps into you over and over and angles his hips so he can knock up against that spot that makes you gush warm and wet around him - peels a hand from your side so he can press his thumb to the swollen flesh of your clit and uses the other to grasp the hinge of your jaw and force you to meet the possessive gleam of his eyes as he drops his forehead to yours.
“Beautiful girl, look at how perfectly you take me like this.” He husks. “I know your close darling - I can feel it, I can taste it on your skin - cum for me.”
You whimper and then he feels you - your hot little hands grabbing his ass, pushing him deeper as your pussy clamps tight around his cock and your body grows rigid before it spasms under the unrelenting force of your climax.
“Oh god- shit, Loki! - I lo - fuck! - I love you!”
It makes him slam his fist into the floor - his skin splitting and spilling red through the cracks he’s made in the stone. The slight burst of pain like gasoline thrown upon the flames of pleasure scorching up his spine as his pace grows sloppy and he slams into you one final time to spill himself deep.
Then there’s silence - a peaceful quiet in his head and his chest. The throne room echoing the quickened pants of your humid breaths as he skims his nose across the swell of your cheek and pulls back so he can look in your eyes. And you must see something in his own - the extent of the vulnerability he’s given to you - because you suddenly cradle his face, your thumbs brushing over the ridged adornments of his cheeks as you draw his forehead to rest upon yours.
“I love you Loki - no matter what form you take.” You murmur. “I will always choose you.”
He believes you - and for the first time in his life, he feels like he’s enough.
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harry-writings · 3 years
Text
The Happy Years
- The one where Y/n is unhappy in her engagement and finds an escape with her former lover
Part 1
Masterlist
(A/N) IM SO EARLY IM SORRY I KNOW I SAID 9PM BUT IM DONE SO MUCH SOONER THAN EXPECTED OKAY IM SORRY LOVE YALL <3333
-
Three years later.
The heaviest of thunderstorms hit the city of London by early morning, the loss of the sun and the gloom of the day leaving Harry bedridden for the first time in weeks.
He always tried his best to avoid days like this — trapped within his home, caged in memories that make every step he takes heavier than the last, wishing for just the smallest taste of salvation — because it’s when he’s left alone between these walls that the darkest parts of him come out, ravaging, feeding off of what’s left of him.
Rain reminds him of the day Y/n left. Thunder reminds him of Malibu. Malibu reminds him of all the things he ever used to do with her — on the bed, on the couch, in the hallways.
There’s no escape from what he’s done.
But when the time hits two in the afternoon and Harry still hasn’t gotten up from under his blankets, he decides that doing even the bare minimum with his day would be some sort of accomplishment.
He decided to get the mail.
And what a terrible decision that was, Harry thinks, as he sees an envelope addressed to him in unfamiliar handwriting by an unfamiliar name. Something about it upsets his stomach and throws him off key, knowing in his heart that he shouldn’t open it, but it’s heavy in his hands and he can’t ignore the temptation of it all.
Another terrible decision he’s made.
Please join us for the wedding of Alfie Lexington & Y/n Y/l/n.
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 3:00 PM.
Dartmouth House. Mayfair, London.
The downpour feels like a drizzle compared to the cries Harry lets out as he reads the wedding invitation, his worst nightmare playing out right before his very eyes and if he wasn’t already so fucked up, he’d try his best to ignore it.
Y/n played her move. She wants him to strike back. She wants to win and watch him lose more than he already has. That’s all she has left of him.
His lips tremble as he sniffles, the invitation shaking between his palms as he lets reality sink in.
Y/n is getting married.
Y/n is happy.
Y/n is going to spend the rest of her life with somebody other than him — somebody that was once his friend.
It's unfathomable to him. The connection him and Y/n shared was unlike any other. They were drawn to each other instantaneously, their feelings of infatuation never once dying down because it was simply incapable of doing so.
They put each other first. They made each other better people, helped each other grow through all the droughts and winter days, and continuously found ways to become closer to one another. They were so comfortable and confident in their company, and so every day they spent together within those four years had never been anything less than pure happiness.
They were meant to be. He didn’t see it then, but he sees it now, and now that’s all he sees because everything he sees is her. 
To know that it’s no longer the same for her kills him from the inside out, because now she really doesn’t belong to him.
He lets out a sound that can only resemble what would be a whine and a groan made together, sobbing as he flips the invitation around, only to find another saved date he just doesn’t have the heart to see — an engagement party for all the invited to join.
He’s so overwhelmed with devastation that his brain becomes fogged, his body disassociating from itself as he rips the invitation apart, growling and screaming and wailing as he just keeps ripping it and ripping it and ripping it.
He’s destroying it in the same way it destroyed him until he gives up, slamming his fists down upon the counter, losing control of himself beneath all his pain and regrets. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen. This isn’t what was supposed to come from this life.
He’s barely surviving as it is.
And he just needs to see her again.
But he doesn’t know how he’d react once he does. Whether he’d want to kiss her, to hate her, to love her all over again, he doesn’t know. His entire world is collapsing and he doesn’t know how to save it from falling apart. He can’t take any more risks when it comes to her.
But what is love without fear and danger? What would it say about him if he were to walk away from this now instead of trying just once more with her?
So with a heavy heart and a sobbing chest, he doesn’t take his chances.
And Y/n simply just couldn’t believe the sight in front of her.
Harry is standing at her doorstep, soaked head to toe, shaking in his bones. His lips are a light shade of blue and his eyes an alarming shade of red, somehow wetter than the rest of him. And as the thunder rumbles beneath her feet and nearly sends her to her knees, it goes to show her that he really is here, standing at her doorstep, and it’s not just a dream.
And she must have been struck by the shock of his presence because her tongue is suddenly tied, her throat dry, her lips fallen open yet forgetting how to breathe.
She just looks at him, soaking him all in, trying to understand what exactly led him back to the biggest mistake of his life.
“Harry?”
“So that was your way of getting back at me?! After three fucking years?!”
Her mouth falls open in disbelief, her eyebrows furrowing in defense. How he could possibly accuse her of something she didn’t even do — considering she hadn’t made any attempts to reach out to him since the moment she left Malibu — makes her feel even more betrayed than before.
He should know her better than this. He should know her from the inside out at this point, but she supposed three years really is a long time, because she’s never seen this side of Harry before. He seems so different to her now.
“Don’t you dare come to my home and try to make an ass out of me! Since when have I ever been the kind of person to get back at somebody?!”
Harry stutters for a moment, his anger and jealousy and hurt blinding him from the truth that Y/n never goes out of her way to get even. Her heart is too big, but he can’t shake this feeling that the person who sent him the invitation was out to do him harm.
And nobody had more of a reason to hurt him than Y/n.
“So the wedding invitation, then? You had nothing to do with that?”
He speaks it condescending, as if he didn’t believe a word she said, but that’s not what it comes down to. It comes down to the fact that she has moved on and found herself somebody so much better than him, and he has no one.
She shakes her head as if to gather her thoughts, confused about how he even found out about the wedding considering Harry quit the firm just hours after he left Malibu, leaving him with no contact to anybody that had any string tied back to her.
“Of course I had something to do with the wedding invitations! I’m the one getting married!”
She pauses then, her cold demeanor dropping into something Harry wants to say resembles a hint of relief, but it’s much more cross than that, much more serious, and he doesn’t expect what’s coming next.
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Me getting married?” She speaks it through a small, bitter laugh. “I should have known the only way you’d fight for me was by being with somebody else. You never could stand being second to me, as ironic as that is.”
“I could give two shits about you getting married.” He lies through clenched teeth, his stomach sick at the mere thought of it. “But I do have an issue with you inviting me to your wedding after walking out on me.”
Her head snaps back up to him.
“Wait, Harry, what are you talking about?” She frowns, trying to make sense of it. “I didn’t invite you to the wedding.”
Why would she?
They are no longer friends, no longer much of anything, so for her to take time out of her day to sabotage anything but herself wouldn’t feel right to her. Besides, it was her decision to never speak to Harry again, she wouldn’t ever take her word back.
Harry frowns then, too, because she isn’t faking her emotions. She’d always been terrible at doing so, and the way her eyes scream and beg for answers can’t go ignored. He, again, feels like the absolute worst person in the world.
“Then who did?” He whispers.
There’s only one possible answer.
-
Seven months ago.
Alfie insisted that he and Y/n had a New Year’s Eve party. They’d never had one before, as Y/n much preferred staying in with a bottle of champagne and celebrating with a lobster dinner and late night reruns of The Honeymooners.
But Alfie was persistent. Very persistent. Too persistent. So persistent she had no choice but to give in, and she just didn’t understand why.
She didn’t understand it as days passed and all Alfie talked about was the stupid party. She didn’t understand it when he rented out one of the most expensive venues. She didn’t understand it when he laid awake the entire night before, too anxious to fall asleep. She didn’t understand it when he asked her to wear his favorite dress.
She wished that she did the moment it happened.
The clock was ticking.
“Five!”
Alfie reached for Y/n’s hand.
“Four!”
Y/n noticed something shift in the air.
“Three!”
Alfie reached his other hand into his pocket.
“Two!”
Y/n knew what was coming.
“One!”
Alfie dropped to one knee.
“Happy new year!”
It was every girl’s dream — the fireworks, the balcony, the view, the prince charming that would whisk her away to spend the rest of eternity together — yet it couldn’t have felt any more like a nightmare.
It wasn’t what she wanted. Not then, not ever before, not once during the span of their relationship, and time seemed to have stopped moving forward.
There she was, in the center of the universe as everybody stopped and stared, gasping and gushing at the sight of a man on his knees for a woman. An act of vulnerability, of love, of submission, yet it didn’t feel like any of those things.
It all felt so wrong.
She began to cry.
To everyone else, it seemed as though she was crying from happiness. Her devoted boyfriend of two years finally asked for her hand in marriage, to be the mother of his children, to spend the rest of their lives tied together by a vow, unable to be broken. So it was no surprise when everybody let out an awe of endearment, nobody (not even Alfie) knowing her well enough to distinguish the difference between her happiest and saddest cries.
Harry would have known.
And that was all it seemed to come back to in that very moment in time.
Harry.
What she would have given to feel his hands on her waist, blocking her body from view with his, taking her away from all the unwanted eyes on her fragile body. He would have done it in a heartbeat because he always did — he always found a way to help her escape her horrifying realities, even the sweetest of ones.
What she would have given for it to be him kneeling in front of her… this all would have been so different.
Her lover of two years was promising her a future, yet all she could think about was somebody stuck in her past, yet so heavily prevalent in her present.
But she couldn’t say no. How could she when everybody expected the answer he was looking for, ready to toast to the bride and groom? How could she when phones captured the beginning of the rest of their lives, ready to share for all to see?
But she couldn’t say yes, either.
She settled for a nod of her head.
The crowd cheered, some clapping, others clinking their glasses, lovers kissing. She only caught a glimpse of those celebratory moments before everything around her drowned in her tears, voices of congratulations so distant beneath her heavy, hyperventilated breaths.
Alfie embraced her, then, and she felt his laughs of euphoria rumbling in his chest as hers met his, and she couldn’t even pretend.
She rested her chin on his shoulder, her expression void of everything that she should have been feeling. And her eyes went blank as they caught a reflection of her through the balcony windows — the last time she ever saw herself for what she truly was.
-
That same day.
Y/n was a mess waiting for Alfie to get home.
Seeing Harry again filled her with so many different emotions, she didn’t know which one to start with. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to destroy everything and everybody that dared get in her way, she wanted to disappear. Yet she had done none of it. All she could manage to do was pace around her bedroom, biting at her nails and getting lost in her scrambled thoughts, her mind and body moving at a million miles an hour, unable to be tamed.
This is precisely the reason Y/n never wanted to see him again.
He does things to her, he always has. She hardly has any control over herself whenever it comes to him and she fucking hates it. No matter how sad, how mad, how hurt or how upset, there was something about his presence that made her see past all of that. It saddens her how much she used to love it.
But her moods swing at her relentlessly, the sadness turning to anger because yes, she is angry. She’s angry that he still has this much of a hold on her, especially after everything he’s done, and she’s even more angry that he hasn’t yet apologized for it.
Because it was all getting better. The constant wondering about what he’s doing or who he’s with and the continuous string of thought always leading back to him was all finally falling into its place. She was finally finding her place.
And then her fiancè did this.
When she hears the bedroom door open, she hardly gives Alfie any time before she starts a fight, wishing nothing more than to take it all out on him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Y/n fumes, everything tainted red with anger as she looks into his eyes and feels nothing but hurt and betrayal. “Inviting Harry to our wedding behind my back?! Do you not remember what he did to me?! Do you not realize what you just did?!”
He frowns, not sarcastic or menacing, but he genuinely seems upset that she’d ever even ask him such a question.
“Y/n…” Alfie sighs, and she suddenly hates the way he’s always managed to remain calm in the most heated of arguments. She wants to start a war with it, to go for the kill, to make him crawl and beg and bleed for her forgiveness. “Of course I remember what he did to you, which is exactly why I did it.”
Her hands turn to fists.
“Are you kidding me?!”
“I wanted to hurt him for hurting you! God damn it, Y/n… after finding out what he did to you all I could think about was ripping him to pieces and that urge never left me, especially after we got together.”
He slumps himself down at the foot of the bed, loosening the tie around his neck, almost too aggressively. And if she wasn’t so out of her mind enraged, she would try her hardest to understand his side.
But there is no excuse for this. There’s no excuse for any of it.
“So now you use our marriage as a way to get back at him?!”
Y/n may not love Alfie the right way, but she had never stooped so low to treat her marriage like a weapon, ready to strike at any moment in time. It wasn’t something she used to inflict pain onto anybody else but herself, no matter how hard it had gotten.
And though she once believed their engagement meant more to him than it ever meant to her, she can’t help but feel as if that’s just another lie she’d been forced to live with.
He went behind her back deliberately to hurt somebody even she never intended on hurting. He knew what was to come of this and yet here he is, letting it all happen for satisfaction’s sake.
It feels like all she will ever be is used.
“Is that what this is to you?! A point on your scoreboard?! A big ‘fuck you, i won!’?”
“Isn’t that what this is for you?”
“Don’t you dare turn this into my problem.” She spits through clenched teeth, punching at the dresser beside her with the side of her fist, face burning with fury. “I’m not the one sending him our wedding invitations!”
“And I’m not the one staying up past midnight scrolling through pictures of him on my phone!”
Her mouth shuts then, her hard and pressed features softening at the unexpected turn of the conversation.
She had been looking at pictures of Harry almost every night since Malibu, she just never expected to get caught. She could physically feel Alfie fall asleep against her, so she always waited thirty minutes before she took her phone out, looking back at everything that once was.
It was the only thing she ever truly wanted.
It’s what she kept going back to — a habit that came as naturally as telling her best friend about her day, about her perspectives on the world, about the lack of guidance in her life — like a phone call at the end of the day as a way to unwind.
She had make believe conversations with him as she scrolled endlessly through her favorite photo album, the thickness of his accent engrained in her mind as she thought of everything he’d say to her if he were still around. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d live vicariously through the memories they made together and replay those moments all night, until they lulled her to sleep.
“I told you from day one that —”
“That you’re never going to let him go, I know. I know that he was the love of your life at one point but this is just pathetic now, Y/n. Absolutely nothing short of pathetic.” She frowns, his choice of words making her heart sink because he knows exactly how to do it. And he sighs, rubbing his hands up and down his face as if he were in agony. “I didn’t know this was the kind of shit I was signing up for.”
Her eyes brim with tears but don’t offer anything more, only upset that he couldn’t find a way to understand her when she’s trying so hard. But he never has and he never will — not in the way she needs him to and not in the way that could ever make this work.
“I’m not sorry for what I did.” She confesses sadly, her bottom lip between her teeth and fingers picking the skin around her nails as she tries, yet again, to make him see. “He was my best friend before he was anything else to me. There was a time in my life where he was all I had.”
And though her heart is still with Harry in every aspect of every way, it’s true. He was her best friend and that’s what she misses the most. There was so much to him that meant so much to her and none of it could ever be replaced, not even by Alfie.
“You know I love you but you also know I'm not the same woman you fell for in Malibu. I’m my worst self when I don't have him around and your favorite parts of me don’t exist without him. Don’t pretend like you don’t see that.”
His hands twitch against his lap, his shoulders slumping because it’s true. The most lively and brightest parts of herself had died the first step she’d taken away from him that night. Sure, she’s still the most resilient and beautiful woman Alfie had ever known, but she’s never been the same since then.
She’s still in love with him and there’s nothing for him to do about it. He didn’t see it until he saw the way she sulked over Harry that night, all those years later, with a diamond ring on her finger that just seemed to weigh her down even more.
None of this means anything to her.
“It’s been three years, Y/n. Just find yourself a new best friend and move the fuck on already. I’m getting sick and tired of this.”
What he doesn’t understand is that she is, too.
-
Two weeks later.
Y/n shouldn’t be this alone at her own engagement party, but it’s the impossible things that always manage to find their way to her.
The party consisted mostly of Alfie’s friends, considering Y/n is much more of an introvert than he is and the small number of friends she does have seemed to have disappeared within the sea of unfamiliar faces. She felt lost for a moment, but when she finally found her fiancè, he had been too invested in his own friends to spare her a single one of his glances, and it soon became disheartening to wait for him to acknowledge her when the thought of her never once crossed his mind.
So she ends up on the steps of their back porch, sipping on a glass of champagne, overlooking the garden, breathing in the silence.
She closes her eyes and succumbs herself to the summer breeze, wondering what she has to do to find a single glimmer of happiness. Her life is just so sad, a labyrinth of betrayal and hurt and heartbreak she can’t ever escape.
Darkness is all she sees when she thinks about her future. There is nothing for her to look forward to. Every day will come and go the same way it has been — unwanted, dreaded, wasted, another failed attempt of contentment. It all seems so hopeless to her now.
The champagne doesn’t stand a chance when it comes to a lonely Y/n, and it isn’t nearly enough to curb her mood, either as she huffs at her empty glass, wishing she had taken another.
She sets it down next to her, placing both her elbows on her knees, getting lost in her world of sorrow, long forgotten by her lover.
Harry is the first one to find her.
He had parked his car across the street from her shared home with Alfie, and even from his distance he knew Y/n wouldn’t be inside. He knows her too well to know she wouldn’t find her place in crowded rooms where the attention is all on her, even if it was all in the comfort of her own home.
And the fact that Alfie didn’t know her senses of belonging well enough to accommodate them made him seeth. She is an independent, a lone wolf, a woman who moves solely in her own way and anybody who’s ever loved her knows that above all else.
He doesn’t care for her.
And he doesn’t need to go looking for her because he can feel her, as if the universe somehow bent its laws of gravity and pushed him straight to her back porch steps, where he finds her all alone.
She nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels a hand fall softly on her shoulder, but immediately sinks into comfort when she sees that it’s Harry moving to sit beside her, his hand refusing to pull away.
Finally, she has a friend.
“Hey.” She says softly, one of the corners of her lips turning slightly upward at his unexpected visit. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
He smiles briefly at her before he overlooks the garden, his fingers squeezing at her shoulder before resting his palms over his lap. And there’s something about being next to her again that makes everything around him fall back into place. This is where he’s meant to be.
“Honestly, neither did I, all things considered.” They both let out a chuckle, the atmosphere between them so horrifically sad yet so incredibly right. “But I just really felt like I had to be here for you tonight.”
Despite the years that had passed and everything that drove them apart, Y/n remains who he loves most in this world. His connection to her never died, so the sudden gusts of off and disturbing feelings Harry used to get whenever Y/n was troubled had never left him. He felt it all just as strongly — her anxieties, her fears, her tears and everything in between. And he’s glad that part of them never died because the look in her eye tells him everything he needs to know.
She’s absolutely miserable.
She sighs, the corners of her lips falling as she stares at her engagement ring, her thumb and pinky twisting it around her ring finger, itchy and heavy no matter which way it's worn.
“Me and Alfie aren’t doing so well.”
She didn’t have to say it because he can already see how treacherous they are together, but that doesn’t make it any easier for him to hear.
He lost his right to be selfish with her in Malibu, and though he does gain a sense of happiness knowing he may have a chance with her again, it’s significantly outweighed by her sadness. Nothing had ever pained him more than that.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shakes her head, her fingers reaching up to tuck fallen pieces of hair behind her ear.
“Don’t be. I don’t really know why he decided to do this, anyways.”
Harry’s lips fall.
“Marry you?”
Y/n’s leg begins to shake, her greatest and most absentminded nervous habit. And Harry had always been quick to place his hand over her thigh and rub at the surface, meeting her eye halfway and taking a deep breath in, to which she would always follow. He hesitates to do so tonight, but settles for it anyway.
She looks appreciative beneath it all.
She’d forgotten about Harry’s subtle favors over the past three years, so to feel it all again when she has been so low and neglected feels like a blessing to her. It feels like somebody finally cares for her, and that’s all she had been wanting all along.
Harry, she feels, is the only one who ever truly has.
“We just never talked about it. It was this big, ginormous, unavoidable, life changing question thrown at me with no warning at all.” Her forehead falls to her palms, as if humiliated by the memory. “In front of everybody.”
Harry’s heart crumbles from within him because nothing Alfie has given her has been anything she’s wanted, and that’s not what she deserves.
He remembers it so distinctively now — the way she poured her heart out to him just a few months before Malibu. It was the third Valentine’s Day they’d spent together and Y/n got so drunk, she spent nearly the entire night venting to him about everything she’d feared when it came to her future relationships.
With her head on his shoulder and her leg slung over his hips, Y/n’s thoughts were so destructive, she couldn’t bear to entertain them any longer, so she decided to let it all out.
“And what if my boyfriend proposes to me in a room full of people? I’d drown in sensory overload. And what if I want to say no? Or maybe? Or yes, just not right now? With all those people looking at me? I think I would pass away.”
Harry looked down at her in subtle curiosity, his fingers playing with her hair in the way they always liked. She was the only thing in his sight that wasn’t spinning out of his control.
“So how do you want to be proposed to?”
She hummed, as if contemplating her answer. But she knew. She already knew.
“In bed, probably. It’s so intimate and private there. So non-traditional. You’re the most done down at your first hour and something about someone wanting you at your worst, forever, is so poetic.”
She looked up at him with doe eyes merely seconds after.
“Will you make sure he does that for me, please? Promise me you’ll try.”
He smiled the best he could at her, pressing his lips down to her forehead. They lingered there for a moment, and Y/n’s breath was taken away.
“I’ll make sure of it.”
What makes the memory even worse was how much he really did love her and how blinded he was to it. He kissed her. He held her. He played with her hair. He slept beside her that night. He kissed her again goodnight. He brought her breakfast in bed the next morning. He did it all over again.
It couldn’t have been any more obvious.
But there’s something about the way she hasn’t expressed any of those concerns with Alfie that doesn’t sit right with him. It just doesn’t make any sense to him.
“Been with him for how long now, two years? And you really didn’t expect him to propose to you? Have you met you?”
She sulks herself deeper into her knees.
“I don’t know. I guess — I guess I just never really thought about it.”
Never thought about it?
“But you’ve always wanted to get married.” He says it more like a question than a statement, genuine concern and confusion in his tone of voice as his eyebrows furrow, trying to comprehend it.
She looks up at him with a void, empty expression.
“Yeah, but never to him.”
Her eyes linger on Harry’s for just a beat longer — just long enough to catch a glimpse of the way his lips fall and the way his face drains of color — before she blinks away from him, turning her gaze back toward the garden. The flowers have never looked so lifeless.
“Y/n… if I had known how you felt, I —”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Y/n shakes her head, looking back down at her trembling hands, tears now burning in her eyes as the sudden sadness of the conversation starts to weigh down on her. “You had four years to feel the same for me and you never did. My feelings would have done nothing to yours.”
“And I never did?” Harry asks incredulously, his voice low and faltered behind the heaviness of her words. “Is that really what you’ve been living with the past three years?”
Loose tears begin to fall down her cheeks because yes, she has been living with his unrequited love for six years and no, it’s never gotten any easier. It’s pathetic and ridiculous and the most unexplainable form of grief she’d ever carried, but it’s the most devastating kind. “How could I think any differently?”
“Because it was real, Y/n. Fuck.” He lets out a strangled, dry chuckle upon his words as he runs his shaking fingers through his hair. He’s nervous, absolutely terrified because if he fails to show her how deeply he feels for her now, he may never get the chance to again, and losing her is no longer an option for him. Not when she’s so close. “Because you know me better than anybody else and you know I wasn’t faking it with you. How could I have been? You would have seen right through me and you know it. You always do.”
Perhaps the love blinded her. Perhaps her heart was so invested it deceived her to see only the things she wanted as a subconscious form of self-preservation. It’s not an impossible possibility, and it’s certainly one she believed in throughout all this time, but a part of her can’t help but find a hint of truth stuck somewhere between his words.
The kissing, the touching, the tasting, the laughing and the loving did feel real to her. It felt real when she saw the way he smiled after every one of their kisses, and the way he reached for her when it was just to two of them, like he couldn’t get enough, and the way he moaned against her, and the way he told her he loved her, like he meant it.
She knows all of his movements and all of his habits — knows all the signs of his stress, his sadness, his tension, his ease. She knows the emotions he wears and the ones he doesn’t, notices everything he does and doesn’t do, and never once did anything he did with her seem anything less than genuine.
She hates that it’s taken her so long to see that, but it doesn’t fix all that he had broken now that she does. She wishes that it could, this life would be so much easier for her to live.
“You really hurt me.” Her voice quivers, low and quiet as she speaks her truth, and it breaks his heart all over again. Never has he heard her sound so sad in his life, and it’s all because of him.
“You think I don’t know that? I hate myself for everything I put you through because you didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve any of it.”
He pauses, waiting for her to say anything else, but it doesn’t come. All there is for her to offer are her silent cries and waterfall eyes.
“That night with Lydia… nothing happened. She caught me off guard and I panicked because how could I not? She was giving me everything I thought I wanted yet all I could think about was how I wanted it to be you.” Y/n’s breath falters then, a knot forming in her chest as she revisits the sight of that horrific night. “I tried so hard to talk it out with her, but she wouldn’t let it go. She kept persisting and persisting and she didn’t give me the chance to explain myself before you walked in on us.”
She didn’t truly know what happened between him and Lydia, but she had her ideas. Whether they kissed, touched, confessed their love or crossed bases, the truth would have only made it worse for herself. Ignorance was bliss when it came to them.
But she didn’t think nothing happened, either, especially when the first words that Y/n heard Lydia say to him that night was I love you, too.
Too.
Too.
Too.
Like he said it first.
She really hopes he didn’t, but she’s so afraid of his answer that she doesn’t ask.
But she doesn’t say anything else, either, because there’s so much more she needs to hear from him but she doesn’t know where to start. She doesn’t know what to do, yet she wants to know everything.
“You were all I ever wanted and I’m so sorry for the way I had to find that out. I’m so sorry that I had to hurt you to realize how ridiculously in love I am with you.”
And how ridiculous it’s gotten.
“It haunts me. It follows me everywhere I go. Every morning, I think about the way you slept beside me in Malibu and how perfect you looked before you even had the chance to wake. I still reach for you even when I know you’re not there just so I can say I tried. Every time I walk the street, I somehow convince myself that I see you walk past me and I always turn back just in case I missed you. Then I spend the rest of my day wondering where you are and how much happier I’d be if you were with me.”
And it’s all so true.
She is around him at all times. Her spirit lingers in the air he breathes, her shadow alive in every ray of sun that touches his skin, unable to be soaked away. The ghost of her is everywhere he is, always, and it pained him just as much as it comforted him.
“I come across all these women and go on all these dates in hopes to find someone that makes me feel half the things you do, just to go home hours later and watch all the stupid videos and photos I’ve taken of you throughout the years because it’s you that my heart is after. Nobody else.”
She melts into herself at his confession.
To know it wasn’t one-sided — the longing, the missing, the wanting so bad that he couldn’t help but look back at all their memories together. Whether he was beside those women or not, she had done the very same thing, and it’s almost as if those hidden moments of desperation were a silent call to one another.
He reaches his hand to her thigh again, his skin warming her to her bitter core, setting a fire in her that had burnt out many years ago. And she doesn’t stop staring at it.
“I love you, Y/n. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything else in this world. I love you so much that it drove me crazy to think about you spending the rest of your life with somebody else because I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of mine without you. But that’s my heartbreak to live with, not yours.”
But it is. It is because he’s the only one she’s ever wanted and living her life with someone else was once unimaginable. It still is. Even through her relationship with Alfie and everything they’ve built together, it wasn’t ever the same.
And it’s not a matter of her not loving him, because she does, just not in the way she loves Harry. He is a high she constantly fiends for, an intoxication that keeps her wild and free, an addiction like no other. Being without him makes her feel sober — in a constant state of withdrawal, falling down deeper into her urges, dependent solely on her relapses — and Alfie is just the mild distraction.
All of this is her heartbreak.
His fingertips rub softly at her leg.
“You’re the best person I’ve ever known. I don't know how I’m ever going to find a way to move on from you, and I don’t know if I ever will, but at least I had the chance to tell you everything you deserved to know. I didn’t think I’d ever have it.”
She still doesn’t answer him, but he didn’t expect anything more.
He wishes he could stay with her for just a bit longer, but he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome (if he could even call it that). And he starts to cry as he thinks about leaving her alone again.
She’s forever going to be his hardest loss.
“I have so much more I want to say to you, but this is your night with Alfie. I don’t want to be the one to hold you back from it.”
He squeezes the top of her thigh, dreading the let go. This may be the last time he sees her or speaks to her for a while, and that in itself is enough to make this so much harder on him.
“I’ll miss you everyday.”
He can’t even look at her as he says it.
His eyes are flooded with sadness as he stands from where he sat beside her, shaking fingers wiping at his tears, his heart the emptiest it’s ever been yet his chest heavier than ever before.
It suddenly dawns on her that she never wants to see him walk away from her again. She doesn’t want to go another dreaded day without him beside her, or go the rest of the night thinking of everything she could have said, but didn’t.
She wants him. She loves him. And she doesn’t want him to go.
“Wait.” She grabs his hand in both of hers before he can make it too far, her eyes wet but the brightest he’d ever seen them. “The party doesn’t end for a while and — and Alfie hasn’t come looking for me since it started, so…” She hesitates, his hands still in hers, and everything is right in the world again. “Do you want to take a walk with me? It doesn’t matter where just, please stay here with me?”
And how could Harry ever say no to her?
He lifts her up from where she sits, the first real and genuine smile he’s seen out of her since they’ve reunited spreading on her lips, and he wouldn’t trade this for the world.
They stray further than expected, catching up on everything they’ve missed throughout the years. It all feels so easy and so right, as if time had hardly passed between them, yet they’ve never felt more apart. Never once did they expect to live in each other’s world through late night storytelling and clandestine getaways.
They laugh. They cry. They reminisce. And they don’t let go of each other’s hand the whole night through.
-
Y/n returns to the back porch a couple hours later, grabbing the finished champagne glass she’d left on the top step to seem as inconspicuous as possible. Not that she necessarily has to, she doesn’t feel as though she’s done anything wrong, she just couldn’t imagine what would come from this if Alfie was to find out.
She slides the back door shut quietly behind her, the remaining guests only giving her a small smile of acknowledgement, none at all suspicious. Some offer her hugs and mingle with her, congratulating her as if it were their first time doing so, telling her how perfect of a marriage she and Alfie are going to have.
If only they knew.
But it isn’t until the last of the lingering guests make it out the door that Y/n and Alfie are left alone — the most dangerous place for them to be. And neither of them speak a word to each other, just meeting eyes for a brief moment in time, as if avoiding everything else that came with the night.
The air is heavy, the chill brutal, but it’s what Y/n is so used to. This is her normalcy.
“I’m glad you had fun tonight.” Y/n says plainly, gathering all the littered champagne and wine glasses floating around the kitchen.
In any other circumstance, she would have stood her ground much more strongly, but the bitterness inside her subsided to something much sweeter after her time with Harry. The weight of the world is gone, it seems, the moon and sun and stars aligned perfectly in her universe. She is weightless, floating, her spirit dancing along the edges of her own personal heaven.
The silence Alfie responds with doesn’t strike a nerve like it usually would. It rather goes unnoticed, only furthering her into her illicit dreamland.
Harry’s touch lingers on her skin and she can feel it all the same even though he’s gone. A shiver runs down her spine as she thinks back to the way his lips pressed against her cheek before parting ways, muttering the quietest goodnight, lovie against her skin, leaving her breathless.
She is endlessly hypnotized by him, forever under his spell, as if his lips were made of magic.
And Alfie’s heart sinks when he sees the look on her face. It’s been years since he’s seen it, yet it’s all so familiar once he does. It’s the same look he fell in love with when he first met her in Malibu.
It’s all so clear to him now.
“So we’re just going to pretend that you didn’t leave our engagement party with Harry?”
Y/n lifts her head to look at him properly for what seems to be the first time tonight, his question catching her off guard since she had so rightfully assumed he wasn’t concerned about her whereabouts, and Harry didn’t make his presence known to anybody but her.
But she doesn’t fight it, doesn’t deny it, doesn’t try to scrape for excuses that’ll only dig her in deeper because she doesn’t regret what she did or why she did it. She has no reason to.
“And we’re just going to pretend that you didn’t completely exclude me from our engagement party?”
Alfie’s hands slam against the kitchen counter, a bitter and sarcastic laugh falling from his lips, as if she had said something untrue. “So I don’t give you attention for two minutes and you decide to run off with some other guy?”
“Two minutes? Try two hours on a night that was supposed to be for us.” It’s her turn to slam her hands down, except hers land on her thighs. “I was sitting on our back porch all night and nobody, not even you, came looking for me.” She sits down on the island stool with burnt-out eyes and heavy shoulders, drained from the reality of their relationship, tired of trying for somebody that’s never held her heart the right way. “Harry was miles away and even he found a way to find me.”
And just like always, it all circles back to Harry.
She’s never been one to compare — verbally, at least — so there is a gloom that hovers over her after she says it, the guilt settling in her bones, but it’s the reality of their situation. An old lover held his hand out to her while Alfie refused hers, and it ended up exactly where it had always belonged.
“All you had to do was ask me to be with you.” He sighs, depleted, because it’s true. He would have been there the second she called his name. It’s the fact that she didn’t that shows him how incompatible he is with her wants.
“I shouldn’t have to.” She frowns, fingers fiddling with the skin around her nails as she contemplates what there is to say next. “Is that how this marriage is going to work? Me begging you to be there for me all the time? Because I’ve never been that kind of person. I will never be that person.”
Alfie breathes heavily in response but doesn’t know what else to do or say to get her to stay. She’s slipping right through his fingers and he can physically feel it — can feel the way she feels for another man, can see the way her eyes refuse him, as if hiding away from something.
But this isn’t about him, it can’t be because it was all going so well, so much better than ever before and nothing ever pushed her away, until Harry.
This is all him.
“You know he doesn’t love you, right?” Alfie breaks the silence, her heart along with it, because she needs to be reminded how badly he had done her wrong. She wouldn’t be turning him into the villain if she did. “He lied to you. He used you to get what he wanted. He —”
“He does love me.” She interrupts him because she doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want him to talk her out of this, no matter how much she should. But it’s on the tip of her tongue, almost breaking from its resistance, and she can’t swallow it back down now. “He was there for me more than you were tonight and he’s not even the one I’m engaged to.”
Another deafening silence.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He understood her, loud and clear, but she’s speaking between the lines. There’s a part of her that’s holding back from something and he already knows what it is, he just needs to hear her say it.
So she does.
“I’m in love with him, Alfie.”
If the confession of her disloyalty wasn’t enough to tear her apart, the choked back sob she heard from Alfie undeniably did so.
She shuts her eyes, pained, unable to take it.
He doesn’t deserve this, but she’s left with no choice. She’ll only hurt him more if she stays.
So she doesn’t.
-
The morning after.
Harry didn’t know what was to come after he confessed his love to Y/n — whether it be a new day of a new life away from her, or the beginning of something so beautifully timeless, he had no idea.
The closure warmed him enough to lull him to sleep, to keep him deep in a dreamstate where all he envisioned was sunny days and the touch of her hand in his. He had never felt so light, so free, so liberated from the cage of guilt and unspoken truths that even if he were to never see or hear from Y/n again, it would have been okay.
He said what he needed to say, she heard what she wanted to hear and that’s all he could have done without interfering with her relationship.
But what he wakes up to is far from anything that ever crossed his mind.
Seven missed calls and five text messages. All from Y/n.
H, please tell me you’re awake. I need you.
I ended it with Alfie.
I don’t have anywhere to go and you’re the only person I want to see right now. Can you meet me at the coffee shop? I really need to talk to you.
Please wake up.
H?
Harry sits himself up in a state of panic, his eyes jumping between the time she had messaged him last and the time it is now. And he springs himself out of bed when he realizes that he hasn’t missed out on her yet, planning to get to her as fast as he can as he throws yesterday’s outfit, not at all caring about how it makes him look.
She ended it with Alfie.
He’s the only person she wants to see right now.
She needs him.
That’s all he can process as he scurries down the street, thinking of everything he has left to tell her to try and win her heart again. He knows he’s undeserving of it, and she does too, but that doesn’t stop him from loving her the way that he does.
His life is meaningless without her, so dry and bleak and depressing he can’t live another day like it. He can’t and he won’t because he’s going to fix this. He has to fix this.
And it doesn’t take him long to find her because there she is, sitting at their usual outdoor table, a large hot tea held between her hands, her leg shaking, her eyes distant. It's such a heartbreaking sight, and he suddenly wonders if she ever sat there after their breakup, waiting for him, hoping he’d do the very same.
The thought makes his head twitch to the side and fingers twist with guilt because no, he never did. He never went back to that coffee shop since the goodbye. It would have hurt too much, it would have reminded him of everything he’d ever done wrong and he couldn’t bear to face the person he once made of himself.
That person died along with her.
She stands from her seat when she sees him walking toward her, exhausted mentally and physically enough to nearly fall from her feet in the process. But her heart is racing a million miles an hour, her stomach fluttering as he grows nearer, her senses of anything but the love she has for him disappearing to nothing, as if it were just the two of them.
And she just needs to know if it feels that way for him, too.
“Y/n —”
“Did you mean it?”
Harry hesitates then, stopping in his tracks, his head tilting at her in curiosity but his features are softer, sadder, as if the question somehow broke him down further than before.
She doesn’t need to elaborate because he already understands what she’s asking. It was his mistakes and his selfishness that led her to question all his intentions, to doubt every sentiment he’s ever given to her, to wonder what was real and what was pretend.
But he doesn’t know what to start with, he doesn’t know what she needs to hear from him to be satisfied with his answer, or know if what he doesn’t say is what breaks this relationship.
“I need you to look at me and tell me that you meant it.” Y/n demands when he fails to answer her, tears flooding yet her face pressed and hard, committed to hearing every last bit of truth he has left. “Because I gave up everything I had for just the smallest possibility that you did. And that may make me weak, that may make me pathetic, and I may hate myself for the rest of my life knowing I made that decision but I can’t help feeling the way I feel for you.”
This is his last chance.
The window of opportunity is open and he is more than willing to dive head first out of it, but he can’t get ahead of himself. One wrong move, one wrong word, one wrong anything and he will have to endure an eternity of misery without her.
So he gives her more than she demands.
He grabs her face between his two hands, gently stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, his gaze set on hers so that she can see how deeply he feels for her and how desperate he is for her forgiveness.
“I meant it.” He breathes out, his lips so painfully close to hers, she can feel his breath as he talks and it makes her legs shake from beneath her. “I’m in love with you. You’re all I think about. You’re all I want.” He leans in closer, ever so slightly, just so the ghost of her lips can meet the ghost of his. “There’s never been anybody but you. Just you. Only you.”
Her breath stammers, quivering and cracking as she flutters her eyes shut at his words, unforgiving tears pouring down her cheeks. And she doesn’t know why she’s reacting this way — the love of her life is giving her everything she’s ever asked for and yet all she can manage to do is break down from everything she’d been keeping inside for so long.
He knees buckle as a particularly violent sob nearly takes her down, and if it wasn’t for Harry’s strong hold on her, she’s sure she would have collapsed to the floor.
Her tears, his shirt, his hands, her back.
This is the closest they’ve been to each other in so long, his heart nearly shatters along with hers. He missed this more than he missed anything else in this world.
“Don’t cry, baby. It’s alright. You’re alright.” Harry shushes her, his lips settling on the top of her head as he presses chaste kisses on it, his fingers combing through her unbrushed hair. “I’m with you, okay? I’m never leaving you again.”
And he holds her for a while, tying her together as she falls apart in his arms, vowing to her over and over again that this is all over. All the pain is over. Everything will be different now.
And it was.
It felt different when Y/n and Harry spent the rest of the morning sitting in their favorite coffee shop, at their favorite table, drinking their favorite lattes. It felt different when Harry reached his hand over to hold hers, this time with no ulterior motive.
It felt different when she held his hand back, and when she smiled down at where they were intertwined, as if they were an extension of each other.
And unlike the last time they were there together, he doesn’t have to let go.
815 notes · View notes
achillieus · 3 years
Text
let you down. (sebastian stan x reader)
summary: it's a universal truth but it's worth repeating; feelings eat us raw. or just an actor and a girl falling in and out of love over the course of three months.
(this was inspired by sebastian's visit to greece for his movie, monday, and is based on that, so that means in the story we’re in 2018. also i have this posted on ao3 too but while i’m writing the last parts i thought of posting it here too)
pairing: sebastian stan x reader
warnings: alcohol, sexual references, implied depression, don’t kill me because of the ending, sebastian and reader are the definition of right person wrong time, it's kinda slowburn because i love the yearning, also this part has some funny moments but overall it’s a big SOB
part: 6/6 (there will also be an epilogue)
(other parts)   (masterlist)
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This is how it ends: broken hearts from crashed dreams.
Sebastian holds you until his muscles ache and your lungs burn from the feeling of too little oxygen. It is cold and dark, almost midnight, too dark, a starless night.
No more stars for you and I.
“Here,” Voice hoarse, eyes heavy-lid and itching from almost crying. He gives you one of the rings he wore in the movie. “I want you to keep this.”
Keep it close to your heart. Forget me not.
He takes a breath and a step back, tries to regain all the strength he still has, steady feet and shoulders fixed. He digs his nails into his palms, red marks in his skin, air catching in his throat, he’s on the verge of falling but he stays standing.
He remembers tears glistening down his cheeks, maybe they were yours not his, and the cold autumn wind hitting his face and he remembers feeling like he’s dying.
And then he closes the door of Argyris’ car and looks at you.
And his heart stretches and stretches and stretches and then somehow splits in half.
/
It goes like this:
There’s a ghost that lives in your apartment from now on. In the living room. Sitting on the couch. And it has steel blue eyes and a familiar heart. And it whispers a love story, half-finished, and you cannot make it stop.
The ghost touches your collarbone and he’s gone but there’s a ring in a golden chain around your neck and a white shirt forgotten in your laundry. And it smells like him. The clinging scent of his aftershave sticking to your pores. Eucalyptus. And no matter how hard you try to wash it off, it still lingers.
How could I ever forget someone like you?
The ghost lives here, but the place is empty, so empty. And it’s hard not to cry.
/
Sebastian calls and texts a lot.
He tells you he’s tired but excited because he started filming a new movie. It’s very indie and experimental, I can’t wait for you to see it. He tells you he’s missing his days in Greece like hell and that one night he dreamt of you. Didn’t want to wake up. What he doesn’t tell you is that he’s coming back in a month, Argyris needs him for some extra scenes. It’s nearly killing him but he doesn’t tell you. He wants to surprise you, see the pure light in your eyes when they’ll meet his.
/
You try sexting. It doesn’t go very well.
23:50, sebastian: if you were here in my bed right now what would you be doing
06:51, you: probably falling asleep hahaha
06:51, you: oh fuck was i supposed to sext back
06:51, you: sorry seb i just woke up and i have a class in an hour, love you <3
23:52, sebastian: fuck timezones
/
(three weeks and 10 seconds later)
“I can’t believe she doesn’t know you’re here,” Argyris shakes his head as he’s driving home from the airport, “If I were her, I’d kill you.”
“Good thing I didn’t fall in love with you.”
Sebastian laughs and looks out of the car window. The stars. There are so many stars tonight. He holds his breath; he’s finally feeling whole again. His heart isn’t split in two anymore.
/
You don’t know how long you stand there at your door, staring at him, but it feels like a century before he grins, almost laughs, takes your hands in his and you start considering that perhaps this isn’t a hallucination. Perhaps it’s real.
“Surprise?”
Something inside of you bursts, your organs twitch. You can’t think, you can’t speak, but you can move. You don’t lose any more time, you take a step forward, attach your bodies, your face buried in his neck, your fingers clutching into the rough fabric of his jacket. You breathe him in like an antidote.
“How?”
“Does it matter?”
“No.”
You kiss him and it’s like poetry, like art, like honey and you can’t separate yourself from him, not even hours later.
/
(looking back, these were the golden days)
You pretending to be mad at him for not telling you he was coming back and him pressing his lips on your skin, drawing patterns on your naked shoulder. A feathery touch.
Sebastian always touches you like you’re something made of gold and porcelain, something cherished that constantly needs to be treasured. And nobody has done that before. And you love him for it.
You try to decorate your Christmas tree together. He messes with the lights for a while, eventually gives up and goes on to eat too many reindeer shaped cookies.
He massages your muscles when you write a boring essay for college.
You go with him when he has to shoot a “driving a motorcycle naked in the centre of Athens” scene and you bite the inside of your cheeks to stop smiling like an idiot.
He gives you a dress he bought for you in New York.  
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know, but I wanted to.”
He calls you sweetheart in the mornings, still half asleep and later joins you in the shower.
“Why are you so hot?”
“Climate change”
“Oh, shut up”
It’s tender and it’s soft and it’s human.
And that’s the saddest part.
/
Soon you realize that him leaving two months ago was merely a rehearsal and you still haven’t said your actual goodbyes. Your chest starts to feel as if it’s full of crushed glass.
And it’s ridiculous because you fell in love with Sebastian sometime between the first ten days you spent together.
Who falls in love in ten days?  
Ridiculous or not, you know you are in love with him just as you know that sooner or later, whatever he is feeling will fade and wither. Maybe it’ll be in a week, maybe it’ll be in a month, maybe in a year if you’re lucky. But there will definitely come a day when he will step out of a gala or a party or a fancy gym in New York with a beautiful model in his arms and two paparazzi’s following him around.
What will you be then?
A past small cameo in his life. A side character. Will he remember your name?
He is your whole world.
(a bottle of cheap prosecco helps you decide that)
He is your whole world.
And yet, there will come a day when he won’t even remember your name.
/
It was difficult. No, it was the most difficult thing you’ve ever done. Telling him how you think it’d be better if you didn’t talk after he leaves.
“I don’t agree with this.”
“Seb, it’s for the best.”
Your body doesn’t feel strong enough to carry your heart. And you’re certain it will only get worse once he’s away. The world around you will melt. You’ll obsess over a phone screen and his messages. You’ll start chasing ghosts again. You can’t handle that.
“Why?” He says urgently and his fingers dance over the flesh of your palms.
“Because this”, you motion your hand between the two of you, “is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had in my life and I don’t want it to become ugly.”
He nods, he understands.
“I love you, you know,” he says smiling and tugs you closer to him, “And I may not be here to show you but I think I’ll love you for a long time.”
Your hand grips his waist right to the bones and something flares in your eyes, something wild that wrenches you around.
“I know, I’ll love you the same.”
“Maybe we’ll meet again.”
“Only if I’m the luckiest girl on the planet.”
He laughs and you look at him, fully aware he’ll be ripped out of your life like a page from a cheap leather notebook. And when you kiss for the last time, there’s a hole forming in your soul.
And just because endings don’t leave visible scars to one’s body and soul, that doesn’t mean the scars don’t exist. You know they do, because you feel the aching pain of every single one of them.
/
(every night when you close your eyes you see him)
(every night you look at the stars and think of him)
/
A month passes and Argyris asks you if you miss him.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”
“He said the exact same thing.”
You tell him not to mention Sebastian again.
Two months pass and you need to stop stalking his instagram profile.
Three months pass and you almost text him.
Four months pass and you go to watch Endgame with some friends and you cry. You cry when Black Widow sacrifices herself and when Iron Man smiles at his wife while dying, and when Bucky Barnes appears on screen.
The others don’t understand and you don’t blame them.
Five months pass and Argyris’ girlfriend wants you to meet someone. A charming boy your age with blonde hair and a lip piercing.
And he's cute but you compare him to Sebastian even before he has the chance to say his name. His eyes are not the right shade of blue and he doesn’t look at you like you’re made of the world’s finest jewel.
And he doesn’t know any constellation names.
And then more than a year passes in a second and you learn to not look for him. Not anymore.
/
It’s early March 2020 and despite the rising fear of the upcoming pandemic, you’re doing well. Scars are starting to fade. And after spending two weeks in Prague, your best friend being there with an exchange program, Sebastian Stan is the farthest thing from your mind.
Until he literally comes crashing into you. At the airport.
No, it can’t be him.
You have your suitcase on one hand and a bottle of antiseptic gel on the other. He has two bodyguards on his sides and a black hoodie on.  And while half of his face is hidden behind a mask, you can see his eyes perfectly. A frozen lake in December. You would know those eyes in your deathbed, at the end of the world.
Your vision gets blurry and suddenly you feel cold.
He won’t recognize me, he can’t.
But then he looks at you and every memory you had buried inside of you resurfaces.
He motions to his guards to wait for him and he starts walking towards you. You breathe slowly, one breath at a time. He takes his mask off and you hesitate to take yours, not sure if you truly want him to see you.
You exchange the typical and very awkward hi, how are you, i’m glad you’re doing okay and then he smiles and it feels comfortable. Familiar.
It’s the whiff of another time that you always kept around. A reminder that you were once loved by a god.
“What are you doing here?”
“Filming Falcon and the Winter Soldier”
If you hadn’t unfollowed him on instagram, you’d known.
“Ah yes I heard about that, congrats.”
He nods a thank you.
“And you? In Prague?”
“I was at a friend.”
He looks conflicted, hurt, turns his gaze to his shoes on the grey cement. You want to say something, but you feel like throwing up.
And then he laughs.
“I was right.”
You’re confused, he notices.
“Back in Greece,” he swallows, “I told you this would happen.”
“It would have been an airport, different gates for each of us, but same waiting hall. Or a Greek island, where we’d both be for the summer.”
“I would have found you.”
You remember and you cannot help but smile. He was right. He found you.
“I didn’t believe you then.”
I barely believe you now.
He touches your hair. And his touch is like a knife. And you want to cry. Magnolias under your tongue. A love long lost is whispering in your ears until it hurts to listen. He’s like a magnetic field and you feel yourself drowning in him.
“I bet they’ll ask me a hundred questions about you later.” He says and looks at the two men waiting for him.
“And what will you tell them?”
“That you’re most probably the love of my life.”
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
“There’s no way we’d meet here if you’re not.”
“Sebastian,” His name sounds like a prayer coming out of your lips and you're ready to tell him you love him and you can swear he looks like he’s ready to faint, “I-”
The guards yell his name. And it's the same feeling people have just before a car crash.
“I’m sorry, I have to go.”
One last look.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
You repeat it over and over again. But you fail.
“No, don't cry” He smiles, one last smile, “Just look at the stars and wait for us to meet again, because we will.”
He caresses the back of your palm for a second and you think your ribcage is shattering but it’s only your heart drumming frantically. Pushing your fragile bones to break. 
You want to stop him, wrap your arms around his torso, never let him go. Not again. But you don’t.
You just watch him leave, one more time, your knees weak, your head heavy and dizzy. For the split of a moment he turns and glances at you but then he’s nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps it was all in your imagination. Perhaps it was nothing but a wonder.
You get into your plane and you silently sob.
/
And then it’s summer.
And you overhear he was seen with a girl, the day before your vacation starts and you find a picture of them together a week later, a pretty blonde girl clinging to his side with a colorful bikini somewhere in Spain. And he’s smiling. And you feel so ashamed. And so stupid.
They say time heals all wounds but they must be wrong because you can’t forget how he used to smile at you or how he used to call you the love of his life.
Was he joking when he said you'll meet again? You bet if you asked him now, he wouldn't even remember saying it.
I’ll love you for a long time.
So long for nothing.
/
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dadsbongos · 3 years
Text
gentle lover
(1)gentle lover (2)burn me to the ground Movie/Game/Show: Loki Dynamic: Loki Laufeyson/Reader Warnings: spoilers for infinity war/1st episode of loki ig, fem pronouns Summary: Loki almost wishes he could've experienced the life he's watching of you and him together. ~~~
There’s something about looking upon the gentle face of a lover and coming to the realization that you’d do anything for them. It isn’t as though you never knew - the knowledge was already there, it just took a few seconds for the thought to become cemented as truth. Loki sees this in himself as he stands before the TVA projection of his life.
He’s paused at a moment on an unnameable planet. He sees himself standing on a balcony in what he assumes to be a late-night, but instead of staring up at the stars, he’s looking upon a woman beside him. She’s looking at him as well. They share the glance with smiles - and that’s what alarms Loki most. The smile he sees is one he hasn’t felt in years. It’s small but it’s more genuine than the leather he was wearing moments ago. It’s a smile he hasn’t felt since before he knew about Laufey. Since before his mother…
He knows that woman. One of Thor’s Midgardian friends. The one assigned to watch and guard him in New York.
He doesn’t know why she’s there with him. He doesn’t know why she looks so content to be on another planet with him. He doesn’t know why he looks so at peace at her mere presence. He doesn’t know why it makes him miss a reality he’s never even known to exist.
He almost wants to be there, just to know what it is about that woman that brings him so much tranquility at that moment.
She’s just another bug, their difference in lifespans is proof enough of that. But Loki knows that look, as much as he hates to admit to his own conscience, he knows that feeling smeared across his own face. It’s caring. Tender. A softness he’s never felt for others is now on full display to a Midgardian.
Loki clenches his jaw and resumes the projection.
He watches the two slide their hands together on a railing, interlocking their fingers.
The Loki onscreen’s eyes flicker between hers and their joined hands. It isn’t even him that speaks first, it’s her.
“When this whole thing is over and Sakaar is ruined and Thor has the throne, where will you go?”
Silence is passed between them, Loki brushes his thumb over her knuckles, tilting his head to the side briefly in thought, “Where will you want me?”
She chuckles and shakes her head, “You wouldn’t want to go to Earth. Unless you’d like the Avengers up your ass.”
They giggle together, ignoring the very real reason why the Avengers would be so onto him in the first place. Loki blinks at the woman, scooting closer to her, “I wouldn’t be fond of that… but for you, my dear, I’d tear the universe apart.”
He kisses her knuckles and she merely jokes back, “That sounds like exactly why they wouldn’t want you. Sorry to say they’re not fond of universe-tearing.”
“I’m charming and romantic and this is how I’m repaid?”
“However,” she stresses with a broad grin, “I can’t say that’s not excellent bargaining to keep you on a leash.”
Loki’s brows furrow and he nearly pulls back, “Like a dog?”
“Well, now,” she bites her lip in thought and looks away at the dystopian city below, but Loki still looks at her.
He looks at her as though she’d sewn the very realms together. As though she’d hung all the moons and suns and stars and planted every sweet flower and harvested every fruit. He looks at her like she’s the beginning of his world - and he knows that it also means that, if she asked right then and there, he’d help her destroy the world too. He looks at her as though she’s the only true love he’s ever known. And for all this Loki, watching himself and this woman be entwined, knows - she probably is. He can feel it through the very projection he’s watching, and so he plays another scene with her in it.
“For a woman who could undoubtedly tear people apart, you master the role of a noblewoman, love.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
Her response is dripping in lighthearted sarcasm and it manages a laugh from the Loki onscreen as he lays back in a shared bed.
“I am somewhat on the espionage scene, it’d be a little embarrassing if I couldn’t even pull off a little role like this.”
“Even so, I admire you for it.”
“At this point, it’d be rarer to find something you don’t admire me for,” she lightly huffs, a smile tipping at her lips as she finishes tying up her dress, “Not that I’m complaining. It's a huge ego boost.”
“There certainly is much to admire about you,” Loki shows his palms as if to display a sort of surrender.
Before more can be said, the projection is paused once again. Loki closes his eyes and lets his head down in the silence - almost expecting that voice to creep through his mind again. He can hear her now, in his head. He knows that out there, in those other variations of him on the sacred timeline that haven’t yet become Variants, they can probably hear her too. In a more realistic sense, of course. Because if they’re determined to fall in love, there must be one of her fated for every one of them. And he almost pities the fact.
He plays the projection in bits and pieces.
“My mother…”
“Loki, stop, you don’t have to.”
“I wish to, dear.”
“Loki…”
“My mother, I truly feel that she would’ve adored you.”
He takes in their love story as it comes and he struggles down what feels too intimate for even him to watch.
“Do you ever worry about the day when you wake up and I don’t?”
“Yes, of course, I do.”
“What will you do?”
“I prefer to not think on that.”
“You think about everything.”
“Some things… are better left unplanned for. At least for now, when that isn’t a valid worry in my mind.”
He almost wishes he hadn’t touched that tesseract. Just to live a life where he gets to see first-hand how this human woman manages to creep under the walls he so carefully spent years crafting.
“I love you.”
“Poor choice, really.”
“Loki. Seriously. I love you.”
“I love you, too, dear.”
It’s bizarre to see himself love. It’s bizarre to watch as he cares for a being he once would’ve had no qualms ruling over. It’s bizarre to know that this is what could’ve been the happiest times of his life if he hadn’t picked up the tesseract.
“Did you ever imagine yourself here?”
“On a spaceship with a bunch of Asgardians and the gladiators from Sakaar? No, never.”
“I meant with me.”
“I know, I was just messing with you. And… no. To be honest. I thought maybe I’d have to watch you as a guard or something. With the whole trying-to-take-over thing, but never that I’d be your girlfriend.”
“Eh.”
“‘Eh’? The hell does ‘eh’ mean? I am!”
“It sounds so… juvenile. Girlfriend - boyfriend.”
“What? Wife sounds better?”
“In honesty? Yes, it does. I’d much rather call you my wife than my girlfriend.”
“You can’t joke about that! I’ll get my hopes up.”
“Who said anything about joking, dear?”
And as he comes to the end, as he watches himself be lifted by the titan he’s come to fear more than anything, he hears her. Her mourning. Her screaming. Her pleading. Her gut-wrenching cries.
He watches her and Thor crawl to his body and sprawl themselves over it in heaps of hiccupped tears and choked sorrows.
“You were supposed to out-live me… Loki, please. You’ve come back before, Loki, please, come back again. Come back again… I can’t - I can’t live this life without you, Loki… please… please come back again…” she sounds as though her heart itself has been ripped from her chest and torn in two before her very eyes, “You were supposed to out-live me… Loki...”
He looks away from the screen. Decides that now is too much. He can’t watch her lose what she saw as the world. Loki barely knows her and yet he knows himself enough to know if he watches her grief then he’ll want to mend it.
Looking upon her and seeing how deeply and irrevocably she’d cared for him, knowing of his past and forgiving his ways and loving him anyway, he knows he’d want to end her cries. It’s that feeling of realization that makes him feel ridiculous for wanting to do so much for a Midgardian he hasn’t fallen in love with yet.
Yet?
Yet.
It’s a feeling of realization that he’d do anything for that lover of his, when he gets to love her. If he gets to love her.
And it’s that ‘if’ that makes him understand why Mobius was so interested in making him watch his own life. His own future. It makes him realize what he wants but can’t have. His brother, his love, his happiness - it gives him something to want. Lying just out of reach.
So long as he’s compliant with the TVA, he assumes. Otherwise, he’d have to tear the universe in half to even see that Midgardian woman once again.
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fanmoose12 · 3 years
Text
It's been a long, exhausting day, and Hange is happy to finally come home. She shrugs her jacket off, throwing it haphazardly somewhere in the vicinity of the clothes rack, kicks off her shoes and stumbles inside the living room.
Something lies on a coffee table - she doesn't remember putting anything, more than that, she's pretty sure she tried to clean up the apartment the other day, so the presence of an object is exciting. Hange skips to it, greedily snatching it in her arms.
It's a book - The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Hange read it, of course, many, many times during her high school and university years. She has a copy somewhere on a bookshelf too, but this is copy is so much nicer. It's not exactly new, but the book is leather bound, and as Hange opens it, she lets a sign of reverence - inside there are plenty of illustrations - beautiful, majestic drawings that seem to come alive right underneath her fingertips.
One picture in particular, the one with Gandalf and Bilbo makes her chuckle in delight. She closes the book and holds it close to her chest for a second, and then she travels into her bedroom to put it on a shelf, on the most prominent place, where it would attract attention of anyone who comes in.
"Thank you!" she yells into the open window.
She doesn't know if anyone listens - she really hopes no one does (she possesses some preservation skills, thank you very much, Moblit) - but it never hurts to be polite. Especially to the one who showers her with so much gorgeous gifts.
This - the mysterious apparitions of new things inside her home - started recently, two months ago. A mysterious gifter started breaking into her apartment and leaving various gifts throughout her home. Sometimes they're endearing - like that book she just received and that geranium that now stands on a windowsill. Sometimes they're useful - like that time, for example, when she forgot to buy something for her cat and almost started running to the closest store only to find a can of cat food that was so much more expensive (and probably much more delicious) than she could ever afford. And sometimes the gifts are straight up weird. One time she came home and found an extremely detailed replica of a human's scull. If that was, indeed, a replica.
Nababa then joked that she's been targeted by a serial killer.
A secret admirer, Mike had cooed right after, with a dreamy smile hidden by his moustache.
A stalker, Moblit had grimly concluded, watching Hange with unconcealed worry.
He didn't stop there, too, and out of the kindness of his heart, offered Hange to help her find the identity of the mysterious gifter (or stalker, as Moblit was adamant to call him).
Of course, Hange, fueled by her endless curiousity and even bigger desire to thank that very kind person, agreed instantly. That agreement led to both of them, couped up in her apartment, lying on a couch with more takeout food that they could possibly eat and a lengthy marathon of Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter.
They spent two days not moving from that extremely comfy couch. And the only person who came to her apartment was the delivery guy.
Moblit didn't stop so easily, though. Hange was actually impressed and proud of his determination. When she first met Moblit, he was such a sweet, soft-spoken boy who sometimes got too shy to order at McDonald's. But now he grew up in a resolute, strong man with a big, caring heart.
It's his determination and overprotectiveness that Hange blames for that afternoon when he decided to set up cameras all over her apartment.
They disappeared the very next day.
Moblit didn't wish to give up even then, threatened to watch her apartment from the other side of the street, staring at her window with the help of binoculars, but Hange managed to convince him that it really wasn't that necessary.
After all, the mysterious gifter never tried to harm her. And, well, she's not quite the romantic that Nifa is, and certainly not as romantic as Mike, but- she finds it all extremely endearing. Every time she comes home, no matter how shitty her day has been, and finds a new gift waiting for her, her heart swells and her lips curl in a smile so wide, her face might just break one day.
Of course, she wishes to know the face and name of her admirer (if that indeed who they are, and she is the one who is right, and not Moblit), but she also admits that not knowing... is pretty exciting too. It's so unusual, so romantic, she feels like she lives through a fairytale or a shitty love story.
And it gives her something to munch on, except boring work stuff. Sometimes she indulges in that a little too much, trying to decipher who from her tight circle of acquaintances can be her secret admirer.
Moblit's candidature is the first one to go. Giving his apparent and very loud aversion to the mysterious gifter, he, of course, might just be the very first suspect. But Moblit is the worst liar Hange has ever seen, so she rules him out without a second thought.
Erwin is a definite no as well, he's too busy to indulge in something like that. Besides, he's too straightforward, and even if he wanted something to happen (and wouldn't that be so much fun!), he most probably would have just said so, without resorting to make Hange feel like she's a love interest from those books Mike always reads during his lunch breaks.
Speaking of Mike, he and Nanaba are out of equation too, since Hange has already received an invitation to their wedding.
Hange thinks (hopes) that it's Pieck, a girl she's been hopelessly crushing on since forever, but even she is not so much out of touch with reality to believe that Pieck Finger herself has deigned to shower her with so much affection. The girl is a sweetheart, just not when it comes to Hange, for some reason.
Then there's a matter of Zeke Yeager, who probably, maybe, kind of has a crush on her. At least, that's what he says every time they stumble upon each other. But Hange is not naive enough (thank you very much again, Moblit) to think that his feelings are genuine. Even if they were, Zeke is too arrogant and self-affected to pay so much attention to someone who isn't him.
Of course, there is also Onyakopon. Sweet, funny and very handsome Onyakopon, another one of her assistants. Hange doesn't think it's him either. He's too orderly and straightlaced to endeavor a stunt like that.
There is another suspect, though, one Hange doesn't even fully believe is real.
There was... a guy Hange met in the back alley. It was Friday night, and, as tradition had it, she, Erwin and Mike were having fun at the bar, drinking beer and trading stories about their work days. Hange had walked out to get some fresh air, when she spotted him - a guy probably her age, trembling on his hands and knees with a pool of blood already forming beneath him. Hange - as one should (as one crazy person should, Moblit would have corrected) - hurried to him.
His eyes were unfocused and his face was covered in bruises. He flinched from her touch, almost violently so, reminding Hange of a scared, wounded animal.
She raised up her hands and swore that she only had good intentions.
After a second of just staring at her, the guy relaxed, staggering into her arms.
He didn't tell her his name, didn't explain what happened, only kept repeating "no hospital". So Hange dragged him upwards, swinged his arm over her shoulder and together they stumbled in the direction of her apartment.
Their journey was accompanied by the man's pained gasps and hisses and Moblit's voice inside her head that kept chanting "what the hell are you doing Hange, this man can be a criminal, he can be a thief or a murderer, or a part of the mafia, which means that he's both".
Hange ignored it just as she always did. Moblit was a wise man with a sound mind, but, even though, she was the first to admit and praise his thoughtfulness, Hange never listened to him. It made their relationship more interesting, it made them unique.
Once they tumbled through her front door, Hange almost losing hold of her precious and very hurt charge, she deposited him on her very comfy couch and, making sure that the man stayed put (he didn't need much convincing, could barely turn his head in the direction of her voice), she ran to get the first aid kit.
She hurried back to him and, after taking off his shirt, she learnt that the covered in blood stranger was also extremely ripped.
And, more importantly (Hange, focus!) covered in blood, so much blood, Hange nearly threw up. But beat up or not, she guessed that the stranger wouldn't enjoy it if he suddenly became covered not only in blood, but in her vomit as well. He didn't seem to be that kind of freak.
So Hange tore her eyes away from those abs and focused them on the bruises that bloomed on the left side of his stomach, at the edge of his hip and up on his collarbone. The wide cut that ran down his right side made her doubt her own abilities, she almost reached out for the phone, but then a strong hand curled around her wrist, forcing her to shift her eyes up to his face.
"No hospital," he repeated, his voice raspy like two stones shifting against each other. "Please," he added, when the doubt refused to leave her features.
Hange faltered for a moment more, before surrendering with a heavy sigh. "You brought this on yourself then," she muttered, as she set out to work.
Her hands trembled and her lips quivered every time the man under her gasped or took an overly sharp intake of breath.
He didn't speak though, didn't even curse at her, so Hange decided to take this task upon herself and fill the silence with her own voice.
At first, she talked about herself and work, but then, as she moved from cleaning his wounds to stitching them, her ramblings came in in earnest. She talked and talked, sharing every interesting fact she had ever heard or read.
The man didn't answer, but whenever she looked in his eyes, he looked right back.
His gaze, even basked in pain, set her heart aflame.
But then Hange finished, put a blanket over her patient, gave him her favorite pillow and went to her own bed, exhausted beyond words.
And when she woke up, there was no sign of him. Nothing in her apartment was even able to hint that another person had spent the night there.
Even her couch, which, as she clearly remembered, the guy had bled out on, was now spotless.
Well, not completely spotless. There was a wet stain as though... as though somebody had tried to clean it.
The revelation drove her to laughter.
She wasn't sure how that man could have not only walk out of her apartment without bleeding out to death, but also clean her damn couch, but she was fairly sure he was relatively alright.
She hoped so, at least.
Writing the night's incident as nothing more than, well, a weird accident, she proceeded with her day.
And a week later - the first gift came.
And, maybe, just maybe, it is a coincidence (Hange doesn't believe in such thing, though, she's a scientist, goddamn it), but a part of her hopes the gifts come from that man. She also hopes, perhaps, foolishly so, that she would see him again.
***
It's been extremely long, but surprisingly - because Mike has been nagging her with his wedding preparations and wondering who she would bring as a plus one - unproductive shift. Hange enters her apartment with a tired sigh, wondering if there is a gift at her coffee table that will make it all better.
After kicking off her shoes, the first thing she does is check the coffee table. There is no gift there.
Instead - there is a girl sitting on top of it.
Hange blinks, beyond confused, lifts her glasses and rubs at her eyes. The girl doesn't disappear.
Instead she turns to her, squealing loudly.
"You finally came! We've been waiting here all day!"
Hange numbly nods, and when her brain that works at a sluggish pace registers that the girl said "we", her arm starts reaching out to the baseball bat she keeps in her closet.
"She's pretty," the girl says to someone, turning her head to the side. "Although, doesn't look like an angel with eyes deep as an ocean."
"You forget that he was on painkillers when he said that," that someone scoffs. "And he also said that the eyes looked like ocean of shit, so, really, Levi isn't the best poet."
Levi? An angel? Ocean of shit?
What the hell are those people talking about? And, more importantly, what the hell are they doing inside her apartment?
Hange touches the handle of a bat, her fingers are curled around the hilt when the girl turns back to her.
"Hi!" she waves and the outstretches her hand, tugging at someone's sleeve. A guy comes into Hange's view - tall and lanky, with short light hair. He waves at her too and curls up his lips, although his smile isn't nearly as bright as his friend's.
"Hello," Hange answers slowly, heart hammering in her chest. So this is it? She really is going to die? She wonders if the bat can save her. There are two of them and they got inside her apartment without any sign of forced entry. They're clearly very skillful. And, possibly, more deadly that her bat could ever hope to become.
"What are you doing in my apartment?" she asks it tentatively, careful not to provoke them.
"We came to say hi!" the girl's smile grows even wider. She bobs her head from side to side, her pigtails swinging in the air. If the situation had been at least a little bit different, Hange would have found her endearing. Maybe, even offered her the candies she always keeps in the pocket of her jacket.
"We won't harm you," the guy says, rising his hands to prove that he's unarmed. "We just want to talk."
"And ask you for a favor!" the girl adds in a singing voice.
"A f-favor?" Hange shifts her gaze from one intruder to another, thinking if maybe she should call the police? She will, she decides. But after she hears what favor they need from her.
Your curiosity will be the end of you, Hange, Moblit's voice chides in her head.
"You know about the gifts, right?" the guy wonders.
Hange nods. "The one that always appear on a coffee table."
The duo frown.
"You didn't check the closet?" the girl asks.
"And under your bed?" the guy adds.
"Um..." Hange scratches her neck, feeling it warm up under their confused stares. "I'll go check there right now."
"No!" the girl surges forward, seizing her hand. Hange tenses immediately, thoughts "they're going to kill me, this is it, I'm going to die" racing through her.
But then nothing happens, and the girl even steps back when she notes Hange's discomfort.
"We just want you to meet someone," she says, and her sweet voice coupled with those adorable puppy eyed look make Hange resolve crumble.
Your kindness and immense trust in people would get you killed someday too, Moblit scolds her again.
"We just need to take some precautions, if you don't mind," the guy speaks up. Hange's throat closes up when he takes out a white handkerchief. "But you will be safe, I promise."
You're going to get kidnapped and then killed, Moblit continues to nag, and then I'm going to come to your funeral, stand over your grave and say I told you so.
Hange ignores the voice in her head the same way she usually ignores Moblit's warnings at work. She nods again, and then the guy comes behind her and takes off her glasses, wrapping the handkerchief around her eyes.
"You guys are into really kinky stuff?" she jokes as he starts pushing her forward.
The girl at her side snickers. The guy groans, muttering, "God, you'll make a great pair."
***
Thankfully, they take the handkerchief off before pushing her through the door of some old, battered up building. The floors are creaky and the windows are shattered in some places, but the building is clean.
Exceptionally clean, much better than her apartment.
The gears in her head start turning, as Hange remembers a stranger who scrubbed out a blood stain from her couch while probably still bleeding. The suspicions continue to grow when the guy - Farlan, he introduced himself on their way there - leads her to a room upstairs.
Inside stands a couch, nearly not as comfy as hers, and an old, grainy TV. On a floor next to it sits a guy. He wears a grey t-shirt, so his abs are not on display this time, but Hange recognises the stranger she saved right off the bat.
She wants to exclaim "you!" and point a very accusing finger at him, but he beats her to it.
"Isabel," he narrows his eyes, staring the girl down. She stares back, unflinching, her smile sweet like a candy. "Farlan," he turns to him, his gaze even darker.
"Saw her standing at our entrance," Farlan explains, overly flippant. "Says she wanted to meet ya."
"We'll leave you to it!" Isabel chirps, giving Hange's hand a quick squeeze and then turning around.
"R-right," Farlan starts moving too. "Izzy and I forgot to buy groceries. Have fun, Levi!"
The door after them closes with a loud bang, and suddenly Hange is alone with a guy who possibly (she didn't prove it yet) spent the last months breaking into her apartment and leaving gifts not only on a coffee table, but inside a closet and under the bed as well.
"So," she begins, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. Perhaps, the tension wouldn't be so unbearable if the guy - Levi - stopped staring at her so intently. "You've been giving me all these gifts?"
"Kinda," he admits, and breathing comes a little bit easier when he turns his gaze downwards.
Although, Hange notes with a sort of sobering bewilderment, his eyes are really, really nice, and she really wants to see more of them.
"You know that's really creepy?" she asks, delighting in the way his shoulders tense. "You made my friend worry."
"That idiot?" Levi lets a tch sound. "The one with the shitty cameras? Almost got caught by that fucker."
"So why did you go through all that trouble?"
"Just wanted to thank you," he mumbles. "For saving my life back then."
"Could have just said so," Hange advises. She takes a pause - a long one - to prepare him for her next words. Truth be told, she needs to prepare for it too. "You could have asked me out on a date too."
He looks up so quickly, Hange wants to laugh. She wants to, but she can't, because there is a lump in her throat that would only disappear after Levi gives her an answer.
He holds her gaze for a long, long time. Hange feels like she can't breathe, and she thinks Levi is doing that on purpose. Maybe, it's a payback for her earlier teasing.
"There is a waffle house around the corner," he jerks his thumb in the general direction. "It's not as nice as the one next to your house, but if you want-"
"I do," Hange cuts him off, and then laughs at his surprised expression. "I wanted to ever since I found you that night," she admits softly.
"When I was bleeding out on a street?" he asks incredulously. "You're a freak, four-year."
"Oh please," Hange rolls her eyes, playfully punching his arm. "You're the one to talk. Eyes as deep as the ocean of shit?" she quotes.
Levi's ears catch fire. "I told them to never bring that up," he mutters, his fists clenching.
"It's kinda cute, if I'm being honest," Hange confesses, grinning at Levi. "Not exactly flattering, but certainly creative."
"God," he groans again. "Are you always that insufferable?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Good," Levi murmurs.
Hange's heart flutters and she reaches out for his hand, holding it in hers and intertwining their fingers. Levi - in a stark contrast to the their first meeting - lets her.
They start walking, still hand in hand, and Hange feels like the main character from the love stories Mike likes to read so much.
Levi looks up at her with a faint smile on his lips, and Hange feels like her grand romantic adventure has just began.
142 notes · View notes
vennilavee · 3 years
Text
salt & the sea
pairing: levi x reader (perp universe)
summary: kuchel has passed away, and levi makes a visit to the sea.
warnings: descriptions of death
word count: 1.4k
a/n: hello it has been 3 months good day all, missed u<33
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Levi has always had bittersweet memories of the beach. He can remember many, many weekends in his childhood with his mother and with Kenny. He can vividly recall the feeling of comforting sea water and a salty, sea breeze fluttering in his hair.
But the sight of nebulous, grey storm clouds over the sea has always made him nervous. His mother always told them that there was nothing that compared to an angry sky and an upset sea.
Even as a child, he would cling to the skirt of his mother’s dress even if he saw a single storm cloud. But Kuchel always loved the sea, no matter the weather.
Sometimes, when Levi was safe inside with Kenny in the little cottage she had rented for a weekend getaway, she would stay outside on the beach. She would sway with the gentle breeze as if she could fall over with even the slightest push.
She has always loved the sea, the openness and the unknown. The thought of the sea sets Levi on edge- after all, the idea that the ocean was vastly unexplored was enough to set anyone on edge.
But not Kuchel. She loved everything about the sea.
Which is why she had asked that when she passes away, her ashes be scattered into the sea, at her favorite beach. Levi had stilled at the request, his entire body going rigid.
But here he is. Standing at the nearly empty beach with his mother’s ashes in an urn. It’s the middle of the summer, but this beach is tucked away from anyone who doesn’t know that it already exists.
He’s alone on this beach. Except for him and his dead mother’s ashes, he’s alone.
But then there’s you. You, who had held him in the early hours of the morning last week, when the doctors had called him to tell him that Kuchel had passed. After so many months and years of suffering, she was dead.
Some part of him feels relief that she is no longer in pain. No longer feeling the absurd weight of life sucking her dry.
But still. His mother is gone and his heart is torn into insignificant little pieces.
Levi had operated on autopilot the day he found out. To the point that it worried you. The only inclination he gave you that he was struggling was the way he squeezed your hand tightly as you drove to the hospital together. Or the way he would uncharacteristically lose focus.
He insists he’s fine, ignoring your soft, concerned questions to focus on the logistics that come with a loved one passing away. You wish he would stop for just ten minutes. He’s hurting, you know he is.
His steely eyes are still and stormy, and he hardly meets your gaze. Whether on purpose, or because if he meets your eyes, he’ll break apart thread by barren thread… you don’t know.
Levi has always had a level head. This time, you worry that he’s too collected. This is uncharted territory for you, too. You don’t want to push him before he’s ready.
You watch him with careful eyes as the sand beneath your bare toes softens. Levi stares out into the open, neverending sea. His eyes are narrowed, lips pursed into a thin line. You don’t know what he’s thinking.
It makes you nervous. You don’t know how to approach him, how to talk to him. But you think not saying anything at all is worse.
You wrap a steady arm around his bicep and squeeze lightly. “Levi,” you say gently, “It looks like it’s going to rain in a few hours. We should go inside.”
“I need to stay,” Levi says tonelessly, “Will you stay with me?”
“Of course, honey,” you murmur, squeezing his hand gently. He squeezes back. You stand with him in silence for a while, your thoughts straying to the funeral ceremony from only days ago-
Levi’s eyes were blank, his stare hollow. People came and went but he cannot recall who he spoke to. What was said.
All he can remember is his mother’s dead, gaunt face. She looked so peaceful. Like she was only asleep in the hospital bed that had become her home.
He wants her to wake up. He feels so tired.
Is he asleep? Is he awake?
Kenny is somber next to him, looking at the casket warily. He almost can’t bring himself to look at his sister, but he does. He has to.
The cremation is the worst part. Levi managed to hold himself together through it, mostly with his hand in yours.
His mother, his dead mother who was previously so warm and filled with life in the apples of her rosy cheeks, is now reduced to ashes. Levi holds onto the urn tightly.
What else is there to hold onto after all?
You. There’s you. He squeezes your hand, reminding himself that he’s not alone.
“Levi?” you ask quietly. The lines in his face are tense, eyes vulnerable and closed off at the same time.
He hums in acknowledgement, the gentle sea breeze rustling his hair. It’s familiar, the salty taste of the air melting on his tongue.
“What are you thinking?”
Silence rings heavy in the air for a moment, but it feels like much longer. His words struggle to scratch their way out from his throat, somehow still held inside in a tight knot of unspoken sadness.
“I used to hate it when it stormed here,” Levi muses, “Was always so fucking eerie. But… Ma loved it. For whatever reason.”
“Then let’s stay.”
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Heavy winds whip through Levi’s hair (you think he needs a haircut, the ends are getting long these days) as it starts to rain. It’s a cold type of rain, the type of rain that you know you both will end up sick from.
A soft headache is already forming in the forefront of your skull, but you stick it out. For Levi.
Who hasn’t let go of your hand the entire time.
The urn containing Kuchel’s ashes sits half buried in the sand, as if Levi doesn’t know what to do with it.
And then somehow, the sky splits open once more with the crack of lightning and rain pours down you.
The glossy sheen of wetness in Levi’s eyes doesn’t surprise you.
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Levi doesn’t say more than ten words to you as the onslaught of rain and wind only increases in the next few minutes. You shiver next to him and notice that the apples of his cheeks are reddened from the cold.
You sneeze. He looks at you, as if being ripped out of his trance.
“I’m ready,” he says softly, rubbing your thumb with a featherlight touch.
“Okay,” you nod.
He takes a hesitant step forward, the rain whipping in his face. He tries, he really does. He tries to loosen the lid of the urn off to drop the ashes of his mother into the cold, unforgiving sea.
But he can’t.
“It’s okay,” you murmur, “Let’s go inside. We’ll get sick if we stay out here any longer.”
“I have to do it now. She loved the sea, even when it was shitty like this,” Levi says forlornly.
“If you’re not ready, then you’re not ready. It doesn’t have to be today,” you say over the noise of the wind, “It can be tomorrow. Next week. In eight months. When you’re ready.”
Levi stares at you long and hard for a moment, only pulled away when the sharp crack of thunder startles you. He cradles your wet cheek and takes your hand, leading you into the small cottage.
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Once you’re both warm and dry, wrapped in blankets and comfortable clothes, you stand by the window to watch the rain fall against the sea. It’s chaos all concentrated in one place, and you’re mesmerized by it.
You feel Levi’s presence behind you before you see him.
“Ma loved watching all of this,” Levi murmurs into your ear, pulling you into his arms.
“I can see why,” you reply, rubbing his hand, “It’s pretty to watch. When you’re not wet and cold, I mean.”
Levi exhales a laugh into your skin. He holds you close without saying a word, only wanting to feel the softness of your hips and the warmth of your skin against his.
He tilts your jaw towards him to drop a desperate kiss to your lips. He wonders if you know that your presence is a bright light in his life. While he’s always had a level head and had his feet on the ground, you bring comfort along with your light.
He never wants to see you dim yourself.
Levi doesn’t realize that tears are slipping out of his eyes and onto your cheeks until you thumb them away, pulling him in for a long, long hug with only the surrounding storm to keep you both company as evening turns into night.
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tags: @simpingmaize @kentobean @captainchrisstan @alrightberries @celestidarling @regalillegal @castellandiangelo @bakuhoesworld
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pillage-and-lute · 3 years
Note
Hey I have a holiday prompt for you! What if it’s the pairing’s first holiday together and they stress about figuring out what to get each other? Any pairing you feel like! PS Reading your stuff never fails to put a smile on face!💜💜💜
Hi Blondey!
cute shit ahead. Modern AU
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“Yen,” I swear,” Geralt panted into the phone. “It’s an emergency. Please, I need your help.”
“No.”
“Yen please I’m actually begging.”
“You should have thought to beg before Christmas Eve.”
“I’m meeting him tonight, Yennefer, I’m on Wilson Street, with all the shops and I’m so lost, please.”
“No.”
“I’ll set you up with Jaskier’s hot friend. The one from the coffee shop. She’s single.”
“...I’m on my way.”
-- -- -- Across Town, Triss and Jaskier’s Apartment -- -- -- 
“I just thought I’d have more time to get him a gift,” Jaskier wailed, draped dramatically over Triss’ beat up armchair. “And then it was thanksgiving, then finals and it’s Christmas eve and I don’t have a gift.”
“Well,” Triss said, sipping her cocoa and barely looking up from her book. “It’s not noon yet, shops aren’t all closed. What kind of gift does your relationship need?”
“What?” Jaskier looked up from his flop of despair, confused. 
“I mean, if you’d been dating for a month it would be slippers or some scotch or something.”
“We’ve been dating eight months though!” Jaskier wailed. “I love him, Trissy, desperately. I see his face and everything goes all pink and mushy.”
“You should get that checked out.”
“No, I mean,” Jaskier sat up and looked at her. “I think he could be the one. He might be it for me.”
Triss looked up from her book. She’d known Jaskier since university, and his heart had always been so mobile, but there was something shining in his eyes. She shrugged mentally. Put it down to a Christmas miracle, but Jaskier was really in love.
“What does he like?”
Jaskier huffed. “He likes being grumpy.”
“And?”
“Me.” He paused for thought. “His horse, Roach, he loves riding. He loves his goddaughter, and mythology.”
“Lord of the Rings nerd?”
“Oh you have no idea, he’s basically Aragorn if Aragorn had albinism.”
“I know a place,” Triss said, getting up. “Put on your coat.”
“Will it be open?” Jaskier asked anxiously, pulling his boots on.
“They live above the shop,” Triss said, throwing his scarf at him. “I know the owners, I’ll just shoot them a text.”
-- -- -- Back on the other side of town -- -- --
“Okay,” Yennefer said. “And you’re sure the hot barista is single?”
“Triss,” Geralt said. “And yes, apparently she’s been crying about it to Jaskier for ages.”
“Right, let’s go looking,” Yennefer said, looking remarkably cheerful.
The rows of shops were mostly open for last minute shoppers and Geralt and Yennefer fought through them. 
Well, Geralt fought. Yennefer just glared and people moved out of her way. 
“Does he cook?” Yennefer asked, pointing at a cookware store.
“Ramen and box mac n cheese,” Geralt said.
“You said he likes clothes?” A very full store with what could only be called hipster clothing.
“He has lots of clothes I want something...special,” Geralt said. He was trying not to lose hope.
“You really like this one.”
“I do, you met him he’s just...bright,” Geralt said, mumbling a little into his scarf as the wind blew a flurry at him.
“Hey, look at the music shop on the corner,” Yenn said. “I’m down here all the time, I’ve never noticed it before.”
Neither had Geralt. “Is it new?” It didn’t look new. It looked nearly condemned.
“You said he loves music,” Yennefer said, stomping in the direction of the store.
“I dunno, that store looks...”
“He loves music,” she said. “And you love him.”
They entered the store.
-- -- -- Triss and Jaskier -- -- --
“How the hell did you find this place?”
“I told you,” Triss said, matter of factly. “I know the owners. They’ll be down any minute to open it up.”
“They’re opening it up just for us?” Jaskier asked guiltily. It was Christmas eve after all.
“They owe me,” Triss said. “I introduced them. Well...reintroduced.”
“Welcome to The Sword in the Stone, Gifts and Novelties,” grinned a young man with very blue eyes and slightly large ears, opening the door. Behind him a blonde young man grinned cheerfully too, he was wearing a santa hat.
“Hi,” Jaskier said, stepping gratefully inside. “It’s a pleasure, I’m Jaskier.”
“Merlin,” said the young man who’d opened the door. 
“Arthur,” the blonde waved.
“Seriously?”
The pair just shrugged. Well, Jaskier, called Buttercup/Dandelion/Julian/a lot of other things, wasn’t about to tell people what to call themselves.
“I hear you need a gift for that special someone,” the blonde -Arthur- said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Yeah, he loves fantasy stuff and I just... I don’t know what to get him.”
“Gotcha,” Arthur began to lead him back into the shop. Merlin and Triss were chatting by the door. 
“Were you thinking bigger, got a lovely cardboard cutout of Viggo Mortensen?”
Jaskier pictured Aragorn watching them have sex from the corner of Geralt’s little studio apartment. “Maybe smaller but kind of...niche?”
“Lucky you, this place if full of niche,” Arthur said cheerfully. 
Jaskier looked at the wall full of swords and was that a battle axe? “Yeah...”
“Does he wear jewelry?” asked Arthur, jingling a box full of metal in Jaskier’s direction.
“Not really,” Jaskier said. Then something caught his eye. “Wait...” he pulled something out of the box and held it up to the light.
Somehow...it was perfect.
“How much.”
-- -- -- Yen and Geralt -- -- --
“This place looks closed,” Geralt whispered to Yennefer, looking around at the racks of instruments.
“Not closed dearie, just dusty,” came a cheerful voice from right behind Geralt. He and Yennefer jumped.
“Sorry honeys,” said a little old lady with coke bottle glasses. “Got my slippers on, makes me quiet. She shuffled one foot, clad in pink fluff, off the floor as exhibit A. “Gift from my great grandson, aren’t they darling? Now,” she looked at Geralt with laser intensity. “You’d be needing a gift.”
“Um, yes ma’am,” Geralt said. How had she known?
“Ooohoo you need a gift,” said the tiny old woman, “Cause you’s a boy in love.” She nearly cackled. “Follow me honeys!”
Geralt and Yennefer looked at each other, shrugged, and followed. What choice did they have?
“Got a harp,” the shopkeeper called cheerfully. It was indeed a full, standing, concert harp. It had a figurehead on it but the face looked absolutely agonized.
“Maybe not,” Geralt said.
“Hmmm no,” said the lady, shuffling her fluffy slippers. “Bagpipes?”
“He lives in an apartment.”
“That’ll be a no, then,” said the woman, peering at a rack of instruments in the corner. “Aha!” she shrieked, startling Geralt and Yennefer both. 
“This!”
It was perfect.
“I can’t afford it,” Geralt said, feeling hopeless.
“Oh yes you can,” said the little old lady gleefully, if she could Geralt got the sense she would be jumping and clicking her heels. “Nobody wants ‘em these days, this one’s seventy-five percent off!”
Geralt left with a weird shaped package.
-- -- -- Geralt’s studio apartment, evening -- -- --
“Hey,” Jaskier, said, stomping his boots on the mat.
“Hi,” Geralt replied, stealing a kiss. “What’d you tell Triss?”
“Told her I was sending a gift, what’s you tell Yennefer?”
“She’s heading over there now,” Geralt said. “With that movie they both like.”
“Ocean’s 8?”
“That’s the one, and a plate of homemade Christmas cookies.”
Jaskier smiled at Geralt and stole another kiss. “We’re never going to have a moment of peace, now we set them up,” he said. Geralt grinned at him. “Never, but I think we did the right thing.”
They settled in on Geralt’s little loveseat. Jaskier set a wrapped present on the side table. Beside it, on the floor, was a very poorly wrapped mess. Lots of scotch tape was visible. It was quite large.
Jaskier felt panicky.
“Should we,” Geralt said awkwardly. “Do you want to exchange presents now?”
“Sure.” Oh god, Geralt’s gift was so small, and what if he hated it?
“You first?” Geralt said, handing over the odd package.
Jaskier had always been a rip-it-open present person, but he took his time, although there was no salvaging the taped up paper.
“A lute?” he turned to Geralt in delight, face lighting up.
“A lute,” Geralt said. “Is-is that a good thing?”
“Oh my god, Geralt, yes! Oh I love it! I can’t wait to learn it!” Jaskier dropped kisses all over Geralt’s face, careful of his new baby.
He handed Geralt the little package. “It’s not as great but...”
Geralt was a folding kind of person and folded up the wrapping paper carefully, then he opened the box and took out the amulet with the silver wolf’s head.
“Oh,” Geralt said.
Oh. Was that a good oh or a bad oh? Jaskier tried to breathe slowly.
“Jaskier I...” 
Oh no. He hated it.
“It’s perfect.”
What?
“When I was little I thought I’d be a knight,” Geralt said, pale eyes shining. “And I drew wolf’s heads on everything, my crest, I said.”
Geralt was holding up the amulet as if transfixed. 
“Vesemir can show you, he kept the drawings,” Geralt said. Then he slipped the medallion over his head.
“My knight,” Jaskier said. “My wolf.”
Geralt gave a playful growl. Jaskier’s heart thumped a little harder. Geralt must have picked up on something in his eyes because he cocked his head.
“Oh?” he rumbled, low in his chest. “You want a wolf, do you?” He growled again.
Jaskier leapt up, shrieking with laughter and ran to hide in the bathroom. Geralt caught up before he could close the door.
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff,” he said, dragging Jaskier closer and giving him a bear hug. He growled in Jaskier’s ear.
“And I’ll blow your...how does it go?”
“I’m not sure, wolfie,” Jaskier said, pulling Geralt closer by the amulet. “But I think it ends with you eating me all up.”
It was a very merry Christmas indeed.
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Ope! Idiots! With a random appearance from BBC’s Merlin (In 2020? I guess.) and a little old lady. + the magic of christmas.
297 notes · View notes
daebakinc · 2 years
Text
Succubus (M)
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Pairing: Jiwoo x Reader (S) Prompt: Succubus/Incubus/Demon Word Count: 5K
Warnings: HELLA sex Trigger warnings UNRELATED to the HELLA sex: mention of rape, violence, gore
~Admin V
           It was nearly impossible to find a dirt crossroads, but you found one. You put your hexbag and photo in the Altoids container and dropped it in the small hole you made in the center of the intersection. After burying it you looked around for the demon who should come.
           You were a tiny bit nervous. You’d never met a demon, so you had no idea what it might look like. You didn’t know if it would have horns or a tail. Or if it’s skin would be scaly. You were sure only seconds passed but it felt like hours.
           “Can I help you, baby girl?”
           You turned to see who spoke, then froze. This couldn’t have been the demon. It was a woman for one. And she was gorgeous. Her hair was platinum, partially pulled back. She wore a mesh black bra with a silver mesh shirt barely covering it, along with black bondage pants and combat boots.
           “I uh, I’m waiting for someone.”
           She blinked then her eyes flashed red. “I believe that would be me.”
           “Oh,” you whispered and swallowed the lump suddenly in your throat.
           She smirked and licked her lips. “Not expecting me, then?”
           “No! No, I . . . I just wasn’t sure of your appearance.”
           She smiled at this too, very pleased in your reaction to her. “Yes, well. J.Seph was busy with another commitment, so you’ll be dealing with me this evening.” She took a few steps closer to you. “So again, can I help you, baby girl?”  Her fingers twisted a piece of your hair.
           Suddenly you felt stupid. Was this worth your soul to make a deal with a crossroads demon? You had nothing else to lose though. And he deserved what you desired.
           “I’d like to make a deal.”
           “Keep talking,” she began sizing you up and circling you.”
           You felt nervous again and wanted to buy time until you could muster the courage to make the deal. “You said J.Seph was busy? Can I ask who I’m dealing with?
           The smirk was back. She seemed delighted by every second of the conversation so far. “Jiwoo.”
           “Jiwoo,” you repeated.
           Jiwoo nodded and lifted a brow, prompting you to continue with your request.
           “My stepfather . . . I’d like him dead.”
           “Really?” Curiosity rang in her voice. “Why?”
           You weren’t prepared for her question. You thought you could just ask and give your soul for it to happen. “Does it matter?”
           “No. I would just like to know how much torture he requires if he is wished to be dead.”
           “Oh,” you really hadn’t thought this through. “He,” your voice cracked. You swallowed another lump and wiped at your eye. “He poisoned my mother until she became mentally unstable and was sent to an asylum, giving him all of her money. I was away at university and found out he’d impregnated my sister. Last night my mother killed herself in the hospital.” You sucked in air, feeling the horribleness of it all.
           “Yes, he does sound like trash. How would you like him to die?”
           “I-I don’t know.”
           “Then I may be creative?” Jiwoo smirked again, excitement filling her eyes.
           You shivered to that.
           She stopped circling and stood directly in front of you. “Yes, I think I can handle this.”
           The breath you were holding rushed from your body.
           The smile never left her face. “Would you also like for me to terminate the child he forced on your sister?”
           That made you cringe. Your sister purposely fell down a flight of stairs to ensure a miscarriage. “That won’t be necessary.”
To your surprise, that made Jiwoo stop smirking. “So there’s been a great deal of suffering by his hand. Let’s discuss payment for this transaction.”
           “Right,” you sighed. “My soul.”
           Her face turned sour. “No, I don’t want that.”
           “You . . . you don’t want my soul?”
           “Of course not. That’s J.Seph’s gig.”
           Fear seeped into your body. “What do you want then?”
           She stepped closer to you, her eyes scanning from your feet up to your face. “You.”
           “W-what?”
           Her chest almost touched yours as she put her face close to yours. “I want you. Your body.”
           “To like . . . possess?”
           Jiwoo chuckled. “Not in the sense you’re thinking, but yes.”
           You had more questions but she didn’t allow you to ask any of them.
           “That’s the deal, his death for your body. Do you accept?”
           You were already willing to give up your soul. What difference would it make to give up your body? “I accept.”
           Her smirk returned. “Excellent.” She grabbed your hand and cut open your palm with her long, black fingernail. She did the same to her palm then joined your hands together.
           A gust of wind circled the two of you and you could feel something like magic swirl around you. It settled and Jiwoo smiled at you again.
           You couldn’t help but feel nervous. Your body was hers now and you never asked what that entailed.
           She lifted your chin with her index finger so your eyes met hers. “Do not fear me, pet. For you are mine and should not be frightened. You will only feel pleasure from me. Do you understand?”
           You weren’t sure that you did. Pleasure? What did she mean?
           Still looking into the depths of your eyes she commanded, “You will now forget everything about him. All of the pain and suffering is gone now. Your fear of me shall vanish, too.”
           In that instant a wave of warmth washed over you. Those things she said you no longer felt. You weren’t entirely sure why you were here in the first place.
           “Go home now, baby girl. I will come to you later, okay?”
           Somehow you felt safe. Content. You nodded and felt almost sad that she was leaving you.
           She placed a kiss on your forehead then vanished.
             Your feet managed to drag you back to your apartment and to your bed. You slept the second your head touched the pillow. You slept dreamlessly but so deeply, for the first time in a long time.
           When you woke up, you were a little confused. You couldn’t remember what day it was, or if you had work. You found your phone. You’d slept almost 12 hours. Was everything the night before a dream? None of it seemed real now.  It seemed you had a few days off, which you didn’t remember, but were happy nonetheless. Finally, you got out of your bed and went to the kitchen to have breakfast.
           After finishing the last bit of egg and toast you felt another hunger. Need. You were quite aroused. Jiwoo’s face found its way to your imagination. Though the dream seemed a bit blurry now, you saw her face clearly, and it fed the arousal.
           You walked back you your bed, propping some pillows against the headboard. You made yourself comfortable. You pictured Jiwoo and allowed your hand to slide under the elastic of your sleep shorts.
           “What do you think you’re doing?”
           You jumped, pulling your hand back.
           Jiwoo was in the corner of the room glaring at you.
           “What?” panic was in your voice.
           “What. Do you. Think. You’re doing?” She said as she stepped closer to you.
           Your cheeks turned a deep shade of red. “I-I . . . I . . .”
           “You were about to touch my body.”
           “What?” your voice hitched again.
           She stepped closer and reached for your breast over your shirt, gently holding it.
           You couldn’t control the gasp.
          It put a smirk on her face. Her gaze pierced yours. “This is my body. You gave it to me per our deal last night. If you want to touch it, you need my permission.
           “Oh,” you gasped again. Your eyes closed and lips parted as her thumb rubbed against your nipple. You tried to focus on her face. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
           Her thumb stopped. “Didn’t you?”
           You wanted to feel fear, but it was excitement. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
           She released your breast. “It better not. But now it seems I must punish you so you understand your sin.”
           More excitement washed over you, your heart speeding. You took in Jiwoo’s appearance. She was wearing a baby-pink and hunter green corset and skirt. Such a contrast from yesterday. She looked more beautiful than you remembered.
           Jiwoo climbed over you on the bed. She grabbed your wrists and tied them together. She then managed to lift them over your head and secure them to the bed frame. She used her long nails and dragged them over your shirt, sleep shorts, and panties, ripping the clothing and removing them from your body.
           You shook in excitement and anticipation.
           She straddled you, her ass resting just below your tummy. She looked into your eyes, her smirk quickly becoming something you loved about her. “Why am I punishing you, baby girl?”
           “I touched myself.”
           “Not quite.” She raked her nails gently down your sides, leaving slight trails.
           A moan left your lips. “I touched your body without permission.”
           “Yes. So now, you will beg for me, you will pant, you will moan, and you will cum. Do you understand?”
           You nodded.
           “Good.”
           Jiwoo leaned forward and rested her lips on your neck. She pressed small soft kisses into the delicate skin. It felt so good, it was beyond your control when small moans escaped your lips. She chuckled against your skin. “Oh pet, we’re just getting started.” She continued leaving soft kisses, then her hands slid up your sides to your breasts. She cupped them both, avoiding your nipples. She massaged them, making you moan louder. “Does it feel good?”
           You nodded in response.
           She nipped at your neck. “Tell me.”
           “It feels so good.”
           “Do you want more?”
           “Yes, please,” you gasped.
           “Tell me.”
           “Please, Jiwoo, I want more.”
           She smiled. Her mouth went back over your neck and began sucking, while her fingers moved to your nipples and tweaked them.
           You could feel your cry of pleasure radiating to Jiwoo. She continued to tweak and pinch your nipples while leaving several hickies on your neck.
           She lifted again to look at you, clearly pleased with the sounds she was causing to come from you. “Do you want me to touch you elsewhere, pet?”
           “God, yes.”
           The smirk left her face and she moved close to yours so you were nose to nose. “There is no god here. It is me who you worship now and only my name that will leave your lips. Do I make myself clear?”
           You swallowed. “Yes, Jiwoo.”
           Her smirk was back. She shook her head. “So much punishment today, baby girl. But you will learn.” She licked the tip of your nose. “What do you want?”
           You exhaled a shaky breath. “I want you to touch me more, please.”
           “Good girl.” Jiwoo cupped your breasts again, not touching the nipples, but massaging them as she had before. Her lips kissed down from your neck, to between your breasts, down your rips, across your stomach. She focused her attention to your hip bone and began leaving hickies on it. Once she bruised one side with her lips she moved her attention to the other.
           “Please, Jiwoo,” your head pressed back into the pillow. Everything she did felt good, but it wasn’t enough. It was punishment. But you needed her. You needed more.
           “What’s that, pet?”
           “I’m sorry for my mistakes earlier. Please. I’m so sorry.”
           She lifted again, grin in place while looking into your eyes.
           You realized you could live forever in the depths of those dark chocolate orbs.
           “What do you want, baby girl.”
           “Please move lower.”
           Jiwoo chuckled. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
           You nodded vigorously.
           She moved her body down on the bed so her face was between your legs.
           “Mmm, so wet for me, baby girl.”
           You cried out, your body needed to be touched, you wanted her to do it.
           Her lips pushed a soft kiss on your inner thigh. She continued doing this, even as your hips bucked, begging for her to touch more.
           Cascades of pleasure flowed from your mouth as she kissed, licked, and sucked the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. You felt so wet. You had to be drenched by now. “Jiwoo,” you squeaked.
           “Hmm?” she continued nipping at the gentle skin.
           “I want more.”
           “Do you?” She bit harder.
           You cried out. “Yes, please Jiwoo.”
           She paused her ministrations and looked between your legs, then shock replaced her grin. She looked up at you. “You’re a virgin.” It wasn’t a question. She lifted her body back over yours, petting your sweat-slicked hair off your forehead. “Oh baby girl, I got a better deal than I could have imagined.” She kissed your lips for the first time and you quickly became dizzy. Her lips were soft but strong at the same time. Her breath tasted like cinnamon and so sweet. She licked your lips and slid her tongue into your mouth. It’s silky taste was like sugar.
           You moaned into her mouth, quickly trying to savor everything about her kiss. Your body pressed up against hers. He nails dug into your hips as she grabbed them. It felt good through the pain, but suddenly a fear crept into you.
           Jiwoo stopped kissing you. “I told you not to feel fear of me. Why are you now?”
           You looked down at her hands. “When you touch me . . . Touch me between my legs . .  I-I don’t want it to hurt.”
           She straddled you and lifted both of her hands to her mouth. As she blew across them, the sharp nails turned to dust until they were short and rounded smooth. She leaned forward and raked her fingers through your hair. “I will never hurt you, baby girl. You are fully mine. Your pleasure is my pleasure and pain is mine as well. I will never cause you to feel any.”
           You bit your lip and nodded.
           Jiwoo kissed your forehead then looked into your eyes once more. “I believe you’re ready now, yes?”
           “Yes, please, yes.”
           She positioned herself again between your legs again and kissed your clitoris.
           You practically screamed at how good the slight pressure felt.
           She kissed several more times, your body jerking each time. Her tongue snaked out and began licking the hard little bud.
           “Fuck, Jiwoo.”
           She looked up. “That good, pet?”
           “Please, don’t stop, please.”
           She grinned and went back to licking, her hands massaging your thighs.
           You screamed as the orgasm racked through your body.
She sucked on you until your panting calmed down and your scream quieted into small moans.     “Do you want to know how good you taste?”
           You nodded.
           “Tell me.”
           “Yes, Jiwoo. I want to taste.”
           She crawled up, dipping her tongue into your mouth. The sweet sugar from her mixed with your spicy taste had your head spinning once more.
           In that instant Jiwoo shoved two fingers into your core.
           You screamed into her mouth.
           She pulled them out, chuckling against your lips. “It’s an ocean down there, pet.” She sat up and straddled you yet again. She waved her hand over the edge of your bed. A green satin kit that matched her skirt appeared. She unraveled it to reveal dildos, vibrators, cuffs, nipple clamps, and things you’d never even seen before.
           “Jiwoo,” you whispered.
           She looked at you.
           “You mean we’re not finished?”
           She scoffed at you. “You came but once. Of course we’re not finished.” She picked up a long, thick, black dildo and strapped in on over herself.
           Your heart sped again as you watched her.
           “Don’t worry baby girl. Virgin or not, you’re so wet right now it will glide in effortlessly and you will only feel rapture.”
           You nodded again and closed your eyes.
           “No.”
           You quickly looked at Jiwoo.
           “You will look into my eyes.”
           You stared, your body starting to shake again.
           She positioned the tip to your entrance. “Are you ready, baby girl? Tell me.”
           “I’m ready.”
           As promised, it glided in smoothly and you only felt pleasure. It filled you and stretched you and your moans only told Jiwoo how good you felt.
           She pulled almost all the way out, leaving the head in, then pushed back in harshly, making your body rock.
           “Fuck, Jiwoo!” You screamed.
           She smiled. “Good, no?” She pulled out leaving the head again ever so slowly, then slammed back in. She continued with this pace until you climaxed again. She didn’t stop however. She swiveled her hips so the dildo touched different angles inside you, caressing every side. When she found the g-spot your nails dug into your palms. Jiwoo grabbed your hips as she pumped, bringing you to your third orgasm.
           Sweat dripped down every inch of your body.
           Jiwoo showed no sign of stopping. She reached into her collection of toys and held a teardrop shaped vibrator. She pumped into you as she crawled over your body, her face to yours again. Her hand reached down with the vibe until it was over your clit. She turned it on and began thrusting fast.
           Her lips were on yours as you screamed, so much delight encompassing your body.
           You came again, but she didn’t stop. You weren’t sure your body could take any more pleasure. Tears came down your eyes and Jiwoo kissed them.
           “One more, baby girl,” she pumped faster. “You can do it. Cum for me.”
           And you did.
           Jiwoo still pumped but slowed into a gentle stop. She took the vibrator off of you.
           “I’m going to pull out now. You will feel the loss, but it doesn’t hurt.”
           You nodded in response, your eyes never leaving hers.
           As she said, you felt the loss of being emptied. You couldn’t help but stare at the toy however. It was covered in your ejaculate.
          Jiwoo saw where your gaze was and smiled. “A thing of beauty, no?” She unstrapped it and lay it on the bed. She crawled over you and untied your arms. “I think you’ve learned your lesson.”
           You wanted to reply, but felt so exhausted suddenly.
           Jiwoo looked over you and brushed your hair with her fingers. “Sleep now, pet. I will return later.”
           And so you did.
              You weren’t sure how long you slept for. Your body felt heavy, and you were so thirsty. You tumbled out of bed. Did you put your pajamas on? It was light outside, but again, you weren’t sure of the day. You made it to the fridge and pulled out a water bottle. You downed half of it before taking a breath.
           You sat down at your dinette and instantly thought of Jiwoo. Thought of your night together. Thought of how amazing she made you feel. How good it all was. You thought of her beauty. Her smirk. Your hand unconsciously gravitated to the front of your sleep shorts.
           “Did you really not learn your lesson from the last time you touched my body?”
           You jumped from your seat, both hands in the air. “I wasn’t! I was just thinking of you. I promise!
           Jiwoo smirked and walked out of the shadow. “Good. I have something to show you.”
           You noticed the satchel against her hip. Then you allowed your eyes to scan her and her outfit. Her platinum hair was straight and hung down. She wore red eyeshadow, the same shade her eyes turned the first night you met her. Red shiny shirt exposing her shoulders, red shiny girdle, matching panty, garter belt with garters holding up thigh-high red stockings, down to red boots. “Wow,” you breathed.
           She gave a genuine smile. “It pleases me so that you are enjoying our arrangement as much as I am. Speaking of,” she reached into the satchel and pulled out a head, slamming it on your dinette. “Proof that the task of your stepfather is finished.”
           You stepped back in horror. Everything Jiwoo made you forget when she looked into your eyes after the deal came swimming back. Your stepfather. The death of your mother. Your broken shell of a sister.
You stared at the head, scratched and bruised from whatever torment Jiwoo caused. The eyes and his open mouth made you gag and you quickly looked away to the floor.
           Unfortunately Jiwoo, was too proud to notice your discomfort. “I assure you he felt greater suffering than that which he caused your family. He was begging long before I actually killed him. But don’t worry. I gave his soul to Matthew, who will undoubtedly continue torturing him . . .”
           Jiwoo was still talking but you heard none of it as you vomited. “Please,” you gasped. You vomited again onto the floor. “Take it away, please, Jiwoo.”
           “Close your eyes!”
           You did and felt her arms wrap around you. Winds similar to the night you made the deal swirled around you suddenly. They calmed and Jiwoo released you but grabbed onto your upper arms.
           “Open.”
           You did and found only her chocolate orbs .
           “Forget everything you just saw. You will remember none of it and only know that our deal is complete.” She wiped tears from your eyes.
           You blinked a few times. You didn’t remember why you were crying. You didn’t feel bad anymore.
           “Lay on the bed,” she pulled you toward it.
           You stopped to look around. You weren’t in your home. You were in a bedroom. The walls were white, covered in black shear curtains. A black bed lay in the center of the room, with black satin sheets.
           “Where are we?”
           “My place.”
           You were instantly filled with fear again. “Are we in Hell?”
           “Of course not. That’s not a place for pleasure,” she scoffed and dragged you to the edge of her bed, making you sit. “I have a residence on Earth.
           “Oh,” you calmed a bit, but were still a little scared.
           She knelt in front of you and took your face in her hands. “We agreed you wouldn’t feel fear with me, right? You’re safe, baby girl. I won’t hurt you.”
           You nodded.
           “Lay back,” she ordered. She lifted your shorts off you and pulled them down. “Open your legs for me.”
           You did and looked to her.
           Her eyes met yours, then she put her mouth over your clit and she sucked, hard.
           Your head fell back and you grabbed at the sheets. “Fuck, Jiwoo.”
           She sucked harder, causing another moan to leave your lips.
           Your hand reached down to hers, which was resting on your thigh. You laced your fingers with hers, and she squeezed it.
           Soon her tongue darted out and licked you, core to clit. She tasted every inch of you, going between your lips, around the clit, even circling your entrance. She pressed her tongue inside you, making you moan her name again. You felt her smile, but she pushed her tongue inside again. She licked the sides of your core, circling, then pumping.
           “Please, Jiwoo,” you cried out. “Touch my clit again.”
           She lapped at your clit again as requested, then pushed two fingers in you, pumping against your g-spot. It was only seconds before she had you cumming. She licked up everything that came out of you, then lay next to you on the bed, her hand still laced with yours.
           You focused on your breath, listening to it calm down. Your head turned to look at Jiwoo. She was already looking at you.
           “Can I ask you a question?”
           “Of course, pet.”
           “How did you know I was a virgin?”
           She smiled. “I could smell it when I was between your legs. It only smelled like you.”
           “Why didn’t you know that when we made our deal?”
           “I was already entranced with you. I just wanted you to be mine, no thought of your purity. The fact that you were just made it more satisfying to know you will only know of the pleasure I give you. Not that any human could compare.”
           You turned back and looked at the chandelier on her ceiling.
           “Baby girl, I’m sorry for scaring you earlier. I often forget the fragility of humans. I allowed my hubris of my accomplishment to block that it might be terrifying for you.”
           Your mouth dropped.
           “What?”
           “I don’t know. You’re a demon. I never thought one would apologize, especially to humans.”
           Jiwoo sneered at you. “I’m a succubus. I care more about pleasure. Fear doesn’t mix well with pleasure. When you feel good, so do I. I was filling in for the usual crossroads demon. I only took pleasure in . . . fulfilling your request because he caused suffering, and you are mine now. I don’t want any of your suffering, so he had to pay.”
           That made sense. “Jiwoo?”
           She looked at you.
           “Can I make you feel good?”
           “Didn’t I just tell you that you did.”
           “No, right now. Can I,” you blushed. You couldn’t finish saying the words.
           Jiwoo smirked and sat up instantly. “I see. You’re hungry. Would you like to touch me, pet?”
           Your blush deepened, but you nodded.
           She lifted your chin with her finger. “There’s no need to be shy, baby girl. You’re mine. Make no mistake of that. I will accept everything about you.”
           You looked deeply into her eyes. Demon or not, like she said, you were hers. And whether she’d admit it or not, she also belonged to you. “I want to touch you.”
           She smiled and stood. She dragged her long red nail across her shirt, girdle, and panties, and they fell off.
           You sucked in breath. She was so beautiful.
           “It constantly thrills me that you find me just as enticing. You may touch, but only as I say, understand?”
           You nodded.
           She lay down fully on the bed. “Sit on me.”
           You straddled her as she’d done to you.
           “Kiss my collarbone. All across it.” Her hand went into your hair as you obeyed her command. “I want your hands on my ribs, directly under my breasts.”
           You moved them in place. It was incredible; you were aroused again in giving her pleasure. You understood why she liked giving it to you.
           “Bite my collarbone. Again. Keep doing it.” Her hand tightened in your hair. “Move your hands to my hips and your lips to my nipple. Suck on it. Harder”
           You did every command. You looked up. Her face showed pleasure, but she didn’t make any sound. Nothing like you did. Perhaps it was because of being a demon. Or perhaps she didn’t want to lose her control.
           You moved one hand from her hip and slowly moved it between her legs.
           Jiwoo grabbed your wrist and pulled your hair so you were looking at her face. “Did I say you could put your hand there?”
           “No.”
           “Then why did you?”
           “I’m sorry, mistress, I just wanted to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”
           She froze, looking at you stunned. “What did you say?”
           You were caught off guard. “I-I wanted to make you . .”
           “No. The name. What did you call me?”
           “Mistress.”
           The hand pulling your hair released its hold, but you remained looking at her.
           “Say it again, the name.”
           “Mistress.”
           Her lips parted and she closed her eyes. “Innovation receives rewards.” Her eyes were back on yours. “You’ve earned the right to touch me anyway you please, but if I give you a command you will follow it. Understood?”
           “Yes, Mistress Jiwoo.”
           She gasped.
           You put your mouth on her other breast, and brought your hand back down between her legs. You bit her nipple while rubbing slow, soft circles over her clitoris. You looked up again, sucking on her and moving the circles faster.
           She didn’t moan still, but the contortion of her face showed exactly how you made her feel.
           You lifted your face and pushed two fingers in her. “Does it feel good, Mistress?”
           Her eyes opened when she gasped and looked at you.
           You curved your fingers to touch her g-spot. “Tell me.”
           She smirked. “Watch yourself. I can still punish you. But yes, you’re making me feel very good, baby girl. Say it again.”
           “Mistress.”
           “Yes!” It wasn’t quite a moan, but it wasn’t her normal voice. You were bringing her closer just by the new name you’d given her.
           “Mistress, moan for me.”
           She did and it instantly made you wet again. It was unlike anything you heard, and so much more seductive than the moans and cries you made.
           You pumped your fingers in harder each pump. “I’m going to suck on your clit now, Mistress Jiwoo. When I tell you to, you will cum for me.”
           Her body shook this time when you used both names. Her hand tightened in your hair again. Her other reached for yours to lace them like before.  
           You were just as wet as her when you started sucking on her clit. You pushed in a third finger into her entrance and heard her inhale sharply. You stopped pumping and spun your fingers in a circle, feeling her walls. You sucked on her one more time then lifted. “Cum now, Mistress. Cum for me, Jiwoo.
           Another delicious moan left her lips and you felt her ejaculate cover your fingers. It brought you so much pleasure that you orgasmed with her.
           She lay completely still while you were the one panting.
           You pulled your fingers out and crawled beside her. “Jiwoo?”
           “Yes, pet?”
           You showed her your covered fingers. “May I taste you?”
           Her smirk was one of pride as you remembered you needed her permission to act. “You’re learning fast, baby girl. Lick them clean.”
           A moan escaped when you tasted her sugary sweetness. You never imagined anything that could taste so incredible.
           Jiwoo quickly rubbed your clit so that you climaxed just as you finished with your fingers. She grinned at you. “We’re going to have so much fun, pet. So, so much."
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a-cupof-jo · 3 years
Text
Set Up My Heart Pt. 12
Pt. 11 -- Pt. 12 -- Final
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College volleyball player!Johnny Suh x reader
Rivals-to-lovers
Fluff and angst
Synopsis: Ever since that fateful day Sophomore year of high school, Johnny Suh had been an insufferable thorn in your side. Once you made it to college you thought the two of you would never have to see each other again. That is, until a sudden school transfer has the entire university buzzing.
Warnings: some language, making out, toxic coping mechanisms, drugs mentioned, heavily suggestive, unedited  
~~
He hadn’t changed much since the last time you had seen him. It is surprising really, that the only noticeable change in your father was the white hairs that began to cover his head and the lines that crossed over his face. Cool air wrapped around you as the distance of the breezeway between you and your father quickly diminished. The man continued staring at your apartment door, his hand coming up to knock at it again. You glanced at the dark windows. Obviously Desiree and Chonhee are not there. Jaehyun stayed in step with you as you ventured closer, “How long has he been here?”
“30 minutes maybe?” Jaehyun shrugged as you glanced over to him. “Chonhee caught him on her way out and told Jungwoo that he was here for you. He said that he’s your dad.”
You scoffed, “He hasn’t been my dad for over 10 years. He’s really nothing more than a man that lived in my house for the first 17 years of my life. You can go back home. I can handle this.” Jaehyun gave you a skeptical look and opened his mouth to say something before you pushed him away, “Go, it’s okay.” He pursed his lips and sent a look to your father before walking back down to his apartment. Lila popped her head out the doorway as he walked in and it was apparent that there was going to be a few pairs of eyes watching out for you. Spinning back to the front door, you crossed your arms over your chest. “Why are you here?” The man turned to look at you, your voice starling him out of whatever universe he had been in.
“Pumpkin!” His arms extended as if he was waiting for you to hug him. “It’s been so long! You’ve gotten so grown up. How old are you now? 18? 19?”
“21,” you stepped away as he moved closer to you. Your hip pressed back into the hand rail that sat at the edge of the concrete walkway. “Why are you here?”
“I just wanted to see my little girl,” he smiled at you and you couldn't help the twist of distrust that stung your gut. “Maybe catch up on what's going on in your life. It’s been a little while since I’ve seen you.”
“It’s been five years,” he winced at your flat voice. “And I don’t care to catch up.”
“Pumpkin-”
“Please, leave. I don’t want you here, and don’t call me Pumpkin.”
“Y/n,” he sighed. “I didn’t want to do this, but I didn’t come here just to see you. Your mother wouldn’t listen to me and I didn’t know who else to turn to.” He looked so down. So broken and like he was too scared to talk to you. Concern lit up your insides as he ran a hand through his hair. “I need some money. I’m in a bad situation right now and-”
“That’s what you came here for? Money?” Disbelief marred your face. “How did you lose it all this time? Gambling? Your dealer came across a big stash? You invested in another scam startup company?”
The embarrassed look on his face morphed to anger as he took in your words, “Look here, I came here looking for a little help. My wife had some health issues this past year and all the money from our insurance finally ran out. I am your father. I took care of you your entire life. You owe it to me to give me just a little bit of money.” He stepped closer to you and your stomach clenched in fear. “Now take me inside and we can talk about this.” You took in his runny nose and blood shot eyes. He pulled his left hand out of his coat jacket and a small baggy fell out. He reached down to grab it, trying to cover it before you could take in the bad contents. His hand was bare, no ring, no tan lines where one may have been, no indication of a wife or family.
You scoffed, stepped up and pushed him away from you, “No, you don’t get to come here and make up some story about a made up wife and illness trying to make me feel bad for you. All so I'll give you money for more drugs.” He cowered slightly as you pointed to the nearly full parking lot. “Now go. I don’t want to see you here. You have no right and if you show up again, I will call the police.” 
“Y/n-” 
“The police will be here in 2 minutes,” you spin to the voice that came from behind you. Johnny stood there with his phone to his ear as if he was talking to someone. Looking further back, Jaehyun and Lila stood outside the apartment quietly watching the   “I would suggest you leave before they get here. I’m not sure you can convince the dogs that that’s powdered sugar.” He motioned to your fathers clenched fist. Johnny stepped closer as your father didn’t move, “I don’t care if they are on their way, I will drag you out of here myself if you don’t leave now.” 
You could see fear lace your father’s eyes. Johnny had won this battle, your battle. Sirens wailed closer and closer and you watched as your father raced to a little red car. Rusted on the outside and littered on the inside. You could see ripped up headrests and missing seatbelts. He looked back up eyes hard, a sneer lacing his features. 
“Dick,” Johnny muttered as the car pulled away. You scowled at him before reaching for the front. “Y/n,” he gripped your wrist. You twisted the key in the door waiting to hear the click of the lock opening. He gave your wrist a light tug, “Are you okay?” 
Anger burned at your skin and embarrassment filled your head. Johnny had watched your father come begging to you and trying to take advantage of you. He had stepped in. He thought that you needed his help. You wanted to scream at him. You wanted to yell and make a scene right there in the dim light of day. 
Jaehyun and Lila started to walk towards you, but you shook your head at them. It would just be worse if they came down here. Johnny’s eyebrow’s furrowed, “Y/n? Can we talk?” 
Your grip on the door knob tightened as he moved closer to you. You pushed the green door open. No words were spoken as he stayed just outside the door, your arm hanging between both of your bodies. Your voice cracked through gritted teeth as you tugged your hand back to you, “Fine.”
“So,” he stuffed his hands in his pocket. You knew what he was going to say. What he was going to ask, but you didn’t help him by answering the questioning eyes. With a sigh you moved to the small kitchen to pour yourself a small glass of water. Johnny sighed behind you. 
You rolled your eyes and turned back to him, “Water?” The clear glass was taken out of your hand in an instant. Johnny’s throat bobbed as he swallowed down the offered drink. 
“We should talk,” he reached around you to set the glass on the counter again. 
A sigh left your lips as you shuffled through the kitchen. “Okay,” You heard him huff at your short response. All the anger that had been stewing under the surface started to rise. You spin to look at him. His hazelnut eyes glowed as the orange light of the sun shone through the windows. “Why did you call the police?”
“I didn’t,” he gave you a light grin. “The sirens were just a happy coincidence.” He watched you continue to move through the kitchen. You grabbed a towel, sending a glare over your shoulder as you wiped off the counter, “Could you please work with me,” He ran a hand through his long hair. “Don’t give me that look. I don’t know why you are so upset with me, you need to talk to me.”
“You want to talk?” You threw the rough towel in your hand onto the now clean counter. “You want me to tell you why I’m mad. Why I’m so angry? Cause believe me I am angry.” Johnny stood in the living room quietly as he crossed a hand over his chest. “I don’t know why he had to be my father. Why I had to have some deadbeat man that feels like he has a right to know about my life show up at any given time and ask me for money. He lied to me about having a family and their needs. I am mad because I almost believed him. That I, for a moment, was considering helping him. Because while he hurt me, while he hurt my mother, no one deserves to struggle. When I realized that he was being deceitful, that he was lying, I tried to get him to leave and he wouldn’t” 
Johnny reached out for you, concern in his eyes, “Y/n.”
“And you!” You threw a hand out pointing at his chest, “You show up and step into situations that don’t involve you. What’s worse is that it hardly took two words from you before he was running away. Him and that other man at the courts a few weeks ago. I bet you did that to stroke your big ego, right? You think that I need a protector, that I need the knight in shining armor to save me from the fearsome dragon.” You stepped into his space, a finger pressing at his chest. 
His face grew cloudy as he reached up and grabbed your hand, "Now, wait a moment. I've never-"
"No, you wanted me to talk, I'm talking now." Your other hand came and he grabbed it from the space between your bodies. "Since you came back, you act like you hate me but then you act that it is your sole job to what, save me? And don't make me bring up how weird it was that just a couple weeks ago you tried to consider everything that's happened to be water under the bridge." Harsh, short breaths filled the area between you two bodies.
Johnny stepped closer to you. His body pressed into yours as he glared down into your eyes, "I have never said you were weak. I have never looked at you as a damsel in distress or someone who needed to be saved. I just wanted to-" 
"Then why?" You cut in sharply and you watched as Johnny's eyes danced around your face. “There is no reason for you to step in. You weren’t needed. I didn’t need you to step in. I can take care of myself.”  You looked at him, his eyes flickering between both of you, "But what I am most angry about is the fact that I hate you being there seeing me weak and vulnerable. Because it made me realize that I wanted you there.” Your voice was a soft whisper and tears flowed down your cheeks. 
Johnny gripped your hands tighter, pulling you closer to him. He was so beautiful standing there in your apartment sunlight shining through his brown hair, making it seem golden. His eyes held concern and another emotion you didn’t want to try to place. Full lips parted as he considered what to say next. You could tell that there was anger still stirring in his gut, but it was fading just as quickly as your resolve to-
His lips were so soft. A gasp fell from his lips as you pressed further into him. It didn’t take but a moment longer for him to return the kiss. His lips parted yours further and he dropped your hands opting instead to wrap his arms around your waist and shoulder. His arms lifted you further into him as his mouth moved over your with fervour. 
You followed him as he shifted his body spinning to pin you to the wall. His hands trailed down your arms and laced with the hands that caressed his neck and face. His chest rubbed against yours as he lifted your hands holding them above your head. The little voice in the back of your head telling you this was a bad idea was drowned out by the moan that escaped your lips as Johnny thigh settled between your legs. Lips trailed across your cheek and down your jaw as you rolled your hips into him. 
A low groan escaped his lips as he ground his hips harder against yours. A whimper left your lips as his thigh flexed underneath you. He panted as he jolted away from you, eyes wide as he took in your figure. You gripped his hands, holding his body close to you, “Y/n,” he shook his head. “We- I- You aren’t-”
“Johnny,” he watched as you released his hands. You reached for him. His eyes fluttered shut as your hands caressed through his hair and down his to cup his neck. You moved forward kissing lightly across his cheek before placing a kiss just below his ear, “Please. I want this. I want you.” 
“You aren’t in the right headspace right now,” his hands rested on your shoulder. You ignored his statement, trailing kisses down his neck and nipping at the juncture of his neck and shoulders. “I don’t want you to regret this,” he gasped as you started trailing hands down his chest, slowly inching toward the hem of his t-shirt. 
Eyelashes fluttered as you looked up at him. Your fingers skimmed at the skin under his shirt. “I won’t, I promise,” you peered up into his now dark eyes. You swallowed deeply, “But if you don’t want this, I won’t pressure you. I understand if-” and his lips captured yours again. You let out a light squeal as he lifted you up, your legs wrapping around his waist. “Bedroom,” you gasped between kisses. “Down the hall, last door on the right.” He took you to bed that night. As you lay there sweat drying on your forehead and Johnny’s soft snoring filling the room, guilt crept into your gut. Johnny turned over his body curling into yours and an arm wrapping around your center. You couldn’t help the tear that slipped down your cheek as you looked back to see the gentle lines and slopes of his face. 
~~
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chocopeppermintcake · 3 years
Text
A Change of Perspective
Pairing: Bryce x F!MC (Casey Valentine)
Summary: Little insights into Casey and Bryce’s relationship from their friends’ perspectives.
Word Count: 4.7k
Rating: M
Warnings: language, (references to) sex
Notes: This is a collection of snippets showing Casey and Bryce’s relationship (and its development) from their friends’ perspectives while also giving a little insight into their friends’ lives. The snippets are in universe-chronological order (B1Ch2 - B3Ch2) and two of them are taken directly from OH (because I couldn’t just not include them).
Disclaimer: Characters & in parts the dialogue belong to Pixelberry Studios.
Zaid
“Could we get some privacy, man?”
Oh goody.
Zaid is barely able to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the sight of two horny kids – clothes hastily getting tucked down, hair tousled – in the supply closet. He really could have lived without this image. Couldn’t they just get busy in a locked room? Or even better, at home?
And the guy’s tone? As if this wouldn’t be a supply closet in a hospital but rather a closet those teenagers had snuck into during a party, playing seven minutes in heaven.
“Oh, by all means. I’m so sorry to intrude. I’ll just wait out here ‘til you’re done. Or, if I may be so bold… might you hand me a suture kit?”
The lines on Zaid’s forehead are deep when he observes the guy reaching for the kit. Green scrubs, scalpel jockey. Of course. That answers why he was so bold to assume that he could claim the supply closet as his personal bedroom.
The girl on the other hand is pressing her lips together, looking down, clearly embarrassed.
The uncomfortable silence stretches and Zaid has half a mind to just barge in and get the suture kit himself, relief flooding him when the guy finally holds it out for him to take. At least he had enough brain to find it. Whoopee.
“… Much obligated.”
This time he rolls his eyes. It’s almost always those youngsters that occupy the supply closets or on-call rooms, interrupting his workflow or his well-earned relaxation – probably because they haven’t yet experienced how some of their colleagues gossip, and finding somebody making out in this hospital is always something that gets talked about excessively. And with Zaid having personally experienced how annoying this can be, he knows that the only thing he can currently do to protect those two obviously new interns is to stay quiet.
_____
Danny
Gossip. Rumors.
The hospital is full of them and the nurses station is the linchpin of the rumor mill, supplying everybody with information. It’s alarming and fascinating in equal measure to see the majority of hospital employees starving for a little gossip, seeing it as an escape from the high stakes of their jobs and spreading it like wildfire.
Danny himself never truly cared for it, the rumors oftentimes false, misleading. And the power of them makes him uncomfortable, probably the result of having been an outsider in high school, the little gossip that has been spread about him and his friends either hurtful or embarrassing.
He prefers to get to know the people, connect with them without judging them, especially not on the basis of rumors. But sometimes, rumors turn out to hold at least a little truth in them. Just like the ones spreading about Dr. Bryce Lahela and Dr. Casey Valentine.
And after joining Sienna and her friends for the Classics on the Common a few days ago, seeing them interacting in a non-work environment and disappearing together during the movie, he’s at least sure that the rumors about them being an item aren’t completely baseless. Unlike a lot of his colleagues though, who are hoping for their chance with one of the doctors, Danny isn’t truly invested in their relationship.
Nonetheless, when he notices Bryce lingering at the nurses station, charming smile in place while flirting with Sarah, he cannot resist observing him, the files he’s currently working on not nearly as interesting. Despite his best attempts to hide it, Bryce seems a little restless, looking into the hospital hallway every now and then and when Casey appears minutes later, engrossed in a patient chart, his smile melts into a more genuine one.
Danny averts his eyes then, set on concentrating on his work once again when he hears Sienna laughing, his pulse suddenly a little faster. And unlike in high school, the kindest and most beautiful girl in the building gives him a wide smile – one that he reciprocates, his eyes following her until she disappears around a corner, his heartbeat slowing down again a few moments later. His smile however lingers.
_____
Kyra
“Hot damn,” Kyra breathes out, watching the hottest show she’s ever seen from her front-row seat.
Sultry music is playing in the club, strobe lights flickering over the scene in front of her, tinting the atmosphere in a warm light. It’s way too hot and she is fanning herself, an encouraging whistle escaping her. For a moment she thinks she must have died and gone to heaven, but if that were the case she surely would be included in this party.
But here she simply observes, a sweaty arm grazing her shoulder as the crowd around them continues to move to the beat, while Casey’s and Bryce’s legs stand still in the middle of the dance floor, their mouths and tongues locked in a passionate dance of their own.
The action in front of her almost leaves Kyra herself breathless, just watching as their hands restlessly roam each other and hair gets pulled lightly. She’s kind of impressed how long they can go without separating, without breathing. As if the other can provide the needed oxygen. As if they can’t survive without the closeness to the other.
Eventually, they do part, chests heaving while they hold eye contact, only breaking it when Kyra leans forward, breaking the spell and making them jump a little.
“Please tell me you’re going to name one of your good looking babies after me.”
For a moment they look sheepish, Casey’s face even more flushed now than a second ago and Kyra’s grinning widely.
Bryce laughs and winks at her. “Already giving up on snagging one of us hot doctors, Kyra?”
“A girl knows when she has lost. Besides I already have –"
“We’re just –“
“Just friends.”
_____
Ethan
He’s tired.
Tired of all the interns needing somebody to hold their hand, needing somebody to tell them that they did a good job. It’s been months – months – since they started working. He’s tired of people sucking up to him like it would somehow make him like them. And it’s incredible that somehow, now that the news are officially out that Casey’s going to join the diagnostics team, it’s even worse than before.
That’s why Ethan escaped into his favorite café, needing just a moment to recharge – away from the possibility of people completely sucking the life out him. The walk back is over way too soon and even before he walks into the employee parking lot behind the hospital, he hears the horn of one vehicle sounding over the regular Boston traffic, a long and extremely irritating noise that lets up for a moment before it sounds again.
Briskly, he walks along the rows of parked cars on his way to the hospital side entrance, looking into the vehicles, the annoying sound haunting him now. Finally, he spots some movement in one of them, anger clearly bubbling up under his surface.
It’s only when he has knocked on the window, once, then twice, the sound stopped and Ethan glances into the car that he sees what has caused this. His jealousy – unreasonable as it may be – boiling over at seeing Casey straddling Bryce’s lap in the driver’s seat, their hair tousled, their lips swollen. Bryce lowers the window, his hand still on Casey’s hip.
“Here for the show, Dr. Ramsey?”
He winks at him and Ethan pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance and irritation.
“You’re on the clock.”
Casey leans forward now, a grin on her face.
“Sorry, Ethan, we’re on a break… But I guess I can see why you’re concerned. With you gone and the two best interns having disappeared for ten minutes the place must be falling apart. We’re going to walk into an apocalypse now, aren’t we?”
Ethan can’t help but smile at that, losing it mere seconds later when Casey leans in to press a quick kiss on the scalpel jockey’s lips before she slowly and with a lot of effort climbs out of the car. The tight knot that had formed in Ethan’s stomach eases only slightly.
Because now he knows with absolute certainty that the rumors he had heard might actually really be true, that the few times he had to witness them making out at Donahue’s weren’t just alcohol-infused , lust-driven escapades between two friends, and he has to get over it. Quite frankly, he never should have developed any feelings for Casey Valentine in the first place – she certainly never gave him any signal that she reciprocates, that she is pining for him – but seeing them like this is the last straw, the moment the blanket irrevocably gets ripped away and Ethan stands alone in the freezing cold.
_____
Aurora
Surprisingly, she likes having roommates.
The experience is new to Aurora and sometimes she’s slightly irritated by the way the group handles the living situation. The cleaning schedule, the notes telling everybody everyone’s work schedule, the fact that everybody seems to have to know where everyone is at all times, what they’re doing, how they’re feeling.
It’s simultaneously great and extremely exhausting.
And today it’s definitely a pain. How can one even think with that much noise in the background?
Slowly, Aurora sits up in her bed, planting her feet on the floor before quietly making her way over to Casey’s bedroom door. It’s ridiculous, really. As if she would be the one disturbing one of their neighbors while walking in socks. As if anybody would even hear anything over the loud music coming from her roommate’s room.
She comes to a halt in front of the door, fiddling with her hands when she realizes that she doesn’t know the protocol for such a situation. Plus… she got warned by the others that Casey and Bryce sometimes listen to music during coitus. The question is just: Would they listen to Abba during the sexual act?
She’s unsure and when she realizes that she has been standing in front of Casey’s door for way too long, the risk of hearing them being intimate way too high, she turns around again.
Mamma Mia, here we go again
My my, how can I resist you
Mamma Mia, does it show again
My my, just how much I missed you
It’s only when she hears Bryce’s horrible singing voice, joined a second later by an enthusiastic sounding Casey, her voice slightly cracking, that she turns around again.
Of course, her knocks aren’t getting heard and Aurora grimaces in pain the louder and worse their singing gets. Finally, she decides to just chance it, the reward of having not to hear this anymore seeming greater than the fear of potentially seeing them naked. Judging by their tones, she’s at least sure that they aren’t currently mid-coitus.
Carefully, Aurora peeks through the little crack in the door. She’s greeted by an image that she should have expected but clearly didn’t.
Honestly, before moving in she hadn’t been a huge fan of this group, her opinion on Casey slightly tinted during the competition and influenced by the experiences she had had in her past. And Bryce, …well, she had definitely thought of him as an arrogant jerk and with the way he flirted with the nurses and patients, she was sure that he would be a playboy. She definitely didn’t think she would see them like this.
Standing in front of each on the bed, both in their underwear – thank god –, Casey and Bryce are dancing like their lives depend on it – arms getting thrown to the side, hips swaying, butts shaking, hair getting tossed everywhere in silly, over the top dance moves. Their voices are still awful, but somehow seeing them like this, radiating pure delight, happiness, being completely carefree, makes their voices somewhat tolerable.
Not tolerable enough though for her to accept their invitation to join them (even though they made it clear that she could keep her clothes on) or to not ask them to turn down the volume.
_____
Rafael
It’s their first double date. Or not-date. Friend hangout?
Whatever one calls hanging out with one’s girlfriend, one’s best friend and a friend one has kissed a couple of times about a year ago before she ended things because she was starting to develop feelings for her friend, now one’s best friend, but both say that they’re ‘just friends’ despite being all over each other quite often and for everybody to see.
And just right now, they’re inline skating in front of Rafael and Sora – who follow them on their bikes – along the riverbank of the Charles, hands clasped despite their speed and the protective gear they’re wearing. Just as friends of course.
With the light summer breeze and the sun warming his skin Rafael smiles, happy so far about the outing. He was a little worried about Sora spending more time with Casey and Bryce, the two of them together, since lately they’ve become increasingly open in flirting with each other. And if there’s one thing Rafael has learned in the past weeks, it’s that they can go from being friends to cute ‘couple’ to shamelessly flirting to horny teenagers in mere seconds.
“…Wanna bet?”
Rafael shakes his head in amusement when the group stops in front of a group of teenagers who has set up two rows of lined up cups, running slalom through them on their inline skates. Of course, this would end like this, Casey and Bryce both too competitive to say no to a little fun competition.
“Racing against each other?”
“Afraid you can’t keep up with me?”
With a grin spreading over her lips but a certain softness in her eyes, Casey nods upwards. “Name your wager, Lahela.”
Bryce’s eyes sparkle and before Rafael can say anything to remind the two of them of his and Sora’s presence, he already speaks up. “Winner gets a striptease?”
Rafael sighs in relief, having feared something more explicit to leave Bryce’s mouth, but a look at Sora, her nose scrunched, her body stiff, tells him that he was right to worry about the dynamic between the four of them. And if Sora is already uncomfortable with this, then another friend hangout with just the four of them is probably off the table.
_____
Keiki
Maybe Boston isn’t all that bad.
Keiki is still getting used to it all. Seeing her brother, hell… speaking to him, living in a new city, the people, the new opportunities, her new life. It’s overwhelming. Especially since she’s still trying to find her place in all the chaos and Bryce’s life.
“Aah!”
A short shriek makes Keiki jump on her stool on the kitchen counter, her pen falling down on her math homework.
“You okay, Bryce?”
“Yeah,” he answers through the closed bathroom door and Casey shrugs her shoulders at Keiki.
“Maybe one of his hair products is nearly empty and he’s freaking out?”
“Or one strand of his hair is slightly out of place.”
Casey grins at her, amusement flickering in her eyes when she looks up from preparing dinner, the kitchen already smelling delicious.
“Or…”
“Can’t stop talking about me, huh?”
Bryce strolls into the kitchen again, a grin on his face that doesn’t quite meet his eyes and one quick glance at Casey tells her that she has noticed it too.
“Everything okay?”
“Just a spider.”
Keiki presses her lips together, a fond smile threatening to spread over her lips. He always hated spiders. It’s one of her most vivid memories from her childhood, her rescuing her older brother from one of them and him telling her, with a loving expression in his eyes, that she’s his hero. She had always remembered it and thought about the piggyback rides she had gotten for the rest of that day whenever she saw one – not that that was often, thanks to the Lahelas employing cleaners that usually left the house in a spotless condition and spider-free.
Casey smiles sweetly, puts the spoon down and the pan to the side and leans in, one hand on Bryce’s chest to steady herself as she stands on her tiptoes to place a quick kiss on his cheek before she makes her way into the bathroom – and Keiki deflates in her chair. She isn’t needed here. He has Casey. She is his hero now. And Bryce probably doesn’t even remember that Keiki was his hero once.
“Holy shit!” Casey returns into the kitchen, eyes wide. “It’s huge.”
“I know.”
“Too huge.”
All too eager, Keiki stands up while Casey hesitates and rips an old page out of her school calendar. The paper harshly runs through her fingers and Keiki whines, murmuring the word paper cut when Bryce and Casey throw her worried looks. The pain isn’t going to deter her from her mission though, so she quickly grabs a glass and disappears into the bathroom.
She sucks in a deep breath, the spider indeed being a little bigger than she has ever seen, but giving up just isn’t an option. Not in general, but especially not with this. She knows it’s a little stupid, a little ridiculous, but maybe – hopefully – this little thing will make her feel closer to Bryce again, will make her feel like in the old times. And it might also make her feel like less of a burden and more like somebody who can contribute to their living situation – even if it’s just on the spider-front.
Relieved and triumphant, Keiki walks by Casey and Bryce a minute later, the spider captured between the glass and the paper.
“You got it?”
Keiki nods at Casey before her eyes find Bryce’s.
“You’re my hero, Keiks.”
Her breath catches for a moment, the corners of her lips threatening to widen into a smile and giving in while she focuses on Bryce who looks at her with a thankful and knowing (?) look. Maybe he does remember…
Fondly, she rolls her eyes. “And you’re a wimp,” she answers before her eyes flicker over to Casey. “You both are.”
_____
Sienna
The clock on her phone shows 03:11 am as the doors of the elevator slide open and Sienna can finally leave the harsh lights behind her when she steps out into the long hotel hallway, Vegas suddenly seeming wonderfully silent.
The walk to the door of her friend group’s room seems endless though and having almost tripped over air, Sienna steadies herself by placing her hand on the wall on the way there, the margaritas she drank showing their unpleasant side effect.
Her perception is so fogged, all her concentration on walking in a somewhat straight line that she first struggles with the key card, almost gets taken down by a suitcase and then doesn’t notice the sounds coming from her room. She only stops in her tracks when she sees them.
Bare skin on bare skin, intertwined in a dance of ecstasy and eyes intensely locked. The groaning and screaming suddenly tear through Sienna’s thoughts in a terrifying volume, only adding to the uncomfortableness she feels at seeing Bryce’s hips snapping up, burying himself deeper in Casey.
“Oh! I, uh… I’ll, um… come back later!”
Hastily, like she’s running away from her worst nightmare, she leaves the hotel room, stumbling into the hotel hallway. An unpleasant shiver runs down her spine and when she’s in the elevator again, Sienna presses her fingers into her closed eyeballs until she sees stars, as if she could simply erase what she saw with this motion.
It doesn’t work, of course. Nothing probably ever will. And while she kind of had gotten used to their sounds while doing it, or better said, she had learned to always have her headphones close by, it was just a different experience to see it as well. One that she wishes she never had. One that she’ll pretend never happened.
But the worst part of it, Sienna realizes after having downed a mojito in record time at the hotel bar, is to have witnessed, even in that one fleeting moment, the gentleness, the care, the love Casey and Bryce showed each other. Sienna sinks further into the comfortable chair in the hotel lobby at the thought, tears stinging her eyes.
Of course, she’s happy for her friends. Beyond happy, actually. But something about seeing them like this today makes her feel lonely, shattered and broken.
Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen Casey and Bryce together all that much, at least not similarly close together in the last few months. And maybe, that is the true reason why a handful of tears are now carving themselves a path, running down her cheeks. The realization that they had tried to stay away from each other whenever she was around, trying to spare her any further pain. Trying not to remind her of what happened, what she has lost.
She really had thought that she had all the time in the world to fully get over Wayne and to get ready to open her heart again. That her and Danny had all the time in the world. And now it’s too late and she feels like a fool, her heart closed off again and a little wave of jealousy rolling over her.
_____
Jackie
It’s nauseating.
All she wants is to eat in silence and to not see something that makes her want to gag. But as she slowly walks into the main living space, she can’t help but roll her eyes, a fond little smile grazing her lips. How can they be so damn cute?
Bryce and Casey are lying on the small sofa, their legs tangled, her head resting on his chest and his arm is protectively wrapped around her. The idyllic picture only gets destroyed by Bryce’s – probably stinky – feet hanging over the edge of the couch, his toes practically wiggling in the air, and Casey suddenly making a sound that Jackie can only compare to that of a croaking frog, and she has to suppress a laugh before her features soften again as Casey nestles even more into Bryce, her lips stretching into a soft smile.
Jackie has to scold herself, glad that Sienna isn’t here to see her almost being in awe over the cuteness before her. She would get teased relentlessly.
It’s just… that the peacefulness they portrait right now is a stark contrast to how annoying they can get when awake. And maybe, deep down, she’s hoping to eventually find somebody who will make her smile in her sleep like that. Certainly not now – her job is way too demanding at the moment to even think about anything that goes beyond quick fun, especially since she wants to make sure that Gary is becoming a great doctor – but someday in the future.
As quietly as she can, and deep in thought, Jackie makes her way over to the kitchen, peering into her cabinet as she ponders which flavor she’s in the mood for. She’s already straightening up, S’mores Pop-Tarts in hand, when she sees arms getting stretched out and hears a few murmurs.
“… you were in it.”
“I was?”
“Mhm…”
“Tell me?” There is a short silence before Casey’s sleepy voice gets higher, a pout and big pleading eyes obvious even though Jackie only hears them. “Please, cuddle face?”
Cuddle face? Surprised, Jackie quickly presses her lips tightly together, a laugh threatening to escape her.
“Mhm… I like when you’re begging,…”
Jackie grimaces. Too much information. She should…
“…squirrel queen.”
That does it. A loud snort escapes Jackie, the package of Pop-Tarts landing on the kitchen counter with a soft thud, the lid opening and a Pop-Tart sliding out – not that she cares at the moment. Instead, she’s focused on the two clearly startled and embarrassed looking faces appearing, looking at her over the back of the couch with wide eyes.
“Cuddle face? Squirrel queen? Really?!”
Oh, this is just too good.
_____
Elijah
The apartment seems cold and vacant like this, blanketed in silence and bathed in a dull shade of grey as clouds cover the weak morning sun. Elijah shivers while he prepares his breakfast, a wave of nostalgia hitting him as he remembers the warm atmosphere at his parents’ place he enjoyed just a few days ago.
“Morning,” he greets a still half asleep Jackie, relieved to not be alone in the room anymore, and chuckles at the half-hearted annoyed grunt she gives him in response.
It’s surprising that neither Aurora nor Sienna are here yet, the later having planned a roomies’ day which is the sole reason for Jackie already being awake, but it’s even more confusing when Casey and Bryce make their appearance before them as well. Yet, even with three other people in the room, Elijah feels lonely, the ongoing silence so bad that Elijah almost wishes for Bryce and Casey to shamelessly flirt with each other. Almost.
Having seen their kitchen routine often enough though, he knows how they are right after waking up – and it’s different from every other time of the day, at least from what they usually let other people see. It’s fascinating, and sometimes even soothing, watching them in the mornings, a certain innocence and gentleness in their behavior with each other.
There seems to be a silent understanding, an effortless anticipation of every step the other takes when they work together. A little smile to signal that he has poured enough water into the pot for the oats she had measured, a nod when he holds up his preferred fruits for today, him momentarily taking over stirring the oats-water mixture when she quickly abandons it to gather two bowls and spoons and him giving Casey her favorite coffee, setting it down next to the stove and his mug after she takes a sip of it and then him freeing her hair from the messy bun she sported, lovingly running his hands through it.
It’s interesting to watch them like this, performing an imperfectly perfect non-routine, something that isn’t a well-studied kitchen dance, as their little interactions, like the soft hip check that made Casey stumble a little to the right, prompting Bryce to grab her arm and steady her and her following little reassuring chaste kiss, show. It’s simply two people being almost flawlessly in synch with each other, reminding Elijah of his parents again.
Another little wave of missing them washes over him, but this time it leaves him feeling warm and content. That is until he hears a soft thud and Bryce’s voice filling the room, the flirtatious tone audible.
“What did I do to deserve this?”
“Your ass just looked too delicious, B. I couldn’t resist.”
_____
Ines
The exhaustion is creeping its way into her body as Ines makes her way out of a patient room after a Code Blue.
Her shift already ended about an hour ago, but with her patient just having crashed, she wants to stay nearby, just in case she’s needed. The downside however, is not seeing her girlfriend today. And although she’s very accepting of Ines’ job and her care for her patients, it’s still not an ideal outcome.
With tired eyes, wishing to be able to cuddle with her girlfriend right now but settling on calling her in a few minutes to at least hear her voice, Ines trudges through the relatively empty, slightly darkened hospital hallway. At the nurses station, she gives Marlene an exhausted smile before walking into the doctor’s lounge, the promise of a warm coffee tempting her.
She yawns, running through the possible coffee options when she spots Casey on the couch, half-sitting, half-lying, with Bryce on top of her, his head resting comfortably on her stomach. His face is turned towards the back of the couch while Casey is concentrated on a medical book, probably still trying to figure out the curious case of the psychic.
A little unsure, Ines stops in her tracks, observing the scene in front of her. Neither Casey nor Bryce notice her in their peaceful state, the only noise in the room being the turning of pages, and with a fond smile, Ines turns around, fishes her phone out of the pocket in her coat and opens the chat with her girlfriend.
Am at yours in 30 minutes.
____
Author’s Note II:
Song: Mamma Mia – Abba
Nicknames – Cuddle Face: Bryce has a specific expression when he wants to cuddle, a certain vulnerability in his eyes and a little, barely-there pout; Squirrel Queen: Casey ‘rescued’ Bryce’s T-Shirt from being stolen by a squirrel when they were swimming in the river (B2Ch1). And that’s where that nickname comes from, obviously. And no, they barely use these nicknames, but sometimes they’re just in the mood to.
Ines – The scene is inspired by this post (x) by @noimarocketman
Tagging @lahellacute
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elizabeethan · 3 years
Text
Safe 1 / 1
Killian finds a safe in Emma's closet and nearly loses his mind trying to figure out what she's hiding.
I'm not saying this is the start of another fic in this universe, but I'm also not not saying that.
This picks up a few weeks after the ending of The Days We Defend (Will Turn to Gold)
Read on Ao3
Rated T I guess
1441 words
For @the-darkdragonfly, who likes to beg me for more Corrine
~~~~
It started out as nothing. It should still be nothing, really, but he’s let that ship sail long ago. The curiosity got the better of him, and he’s been losing his mind ever since. 
 It’s easy to expect the worst. He and Emma have discussed the unpredictability of her magic, what with her pregnancy and recent curse and subsequent traumatic events, and he thought that they were on the same page with her taking it easy. She’s only a few months along, just starting to show, and she’s been totally on board with his suggestion that using magic she can’t fully understand, with few resources to help her, could be dangerous. 
 But then he found the damn safe. 
 He had no idea she owned it, but he probably shouldn’t be surprised. Based on who she was before he knew her, he can’t be shocked at the knowledge that she has secrets. But still, he’s worried. He’s worried at the thought of her needing to keep things from him. He's worried at the idea that she may not feel she can trust him with every aspect of her life. He's worried that she’s keeping something magical and dangerous locked away in their closet and not telling him about it. 
 This is what he gets for doing the laundry, he supposes. It’s a cursed task, to be sure. 
He didn’t mean to at first. He didn’t intend to try and break it open. But when he found himself punching in 1-2-3-4 and then 1-0-2-3 and then 0-8-1-6 and then 0-6-2-4, he realized how insane he was acting. Trying to hack into her safe using her family’s dates of birth was insane. Trying to violate his fiance’s trust by hacking into her locked safe was completely insane. Not to mention, diabolical. 
 But then he found himself going even more insane, trying to pry the heavy metal door open with his hook when the combinations he guessed failed. The safe was small enough, mounted into the wall and hidden behind a myriad of dresses hanging from the bar in the closet. There’s nothing to even say that there's even anything inside. But for some reason, he can’t help but to picture the worst. He pictures a magic dagger powerful enough to destroy everything they hold dear. He pictures a magic bean that could rip their family apart. He pictures the hat that holds the ominous power of the Dark One. 
 He wonders why he can’t trust his fiance. 
 He should’ve heard the front door open and slam shut. He should’ve heard his toddler tromping up the stairs and running to his room to greet him. 
 “Daddy, what doing there?” she asks pensively, leaning against the doorframe exactly as she’s watched her father do. 
 “Well, hello, my love. I’m just finishing up. How was Mimi?” 
 “What doing?” she asks again, crossing her tiny arms over her chest. “Landy?” 
 He clears his throat and stands, feeling a burn in his knees as he realizes how long he’s been sitting here trying to violate his love’s trust. “Yes, angel, I’m just doing some laundry.” 
 “Mommy!” she screams, turning towards the door that leads out to the hallway as he hears Emma’s footsteps approaching. “Daddy does landy.” 
 “Does he?” Emma asks, smiling and cocking her head to the right as she takes in the sight before her: Killian standing and groaning as he brushes off the backs of his legs. “Isn’t that nice of him.” 
 He recognizes the suspicious smile on her face immediately as she bites her bottom lip and raises a brow at him. “Yes,” Corrine confirms, ratting out her father just like the pirate he knew she would become. “See?” 
 “Yes,” Emma responds, smiling down at their daughter. “I do see. I see your daddy fiddling with things that don’t belong to him.” 
 “Ah, well,” he laughs nervously, scratching behind his ear and clearing his throat. “It certainly is lovely to see you both.” 
 “I’m sure it is,” she rolls her eyes in response, stepping towards him and placing a chaste kiss to his cheek just beside his mouth. “0-9-1-8.”
 “Pardon?” he asks in confusion. 
 “The combination,” she clarifies. “0-9-1-8. September 18th; the day you found me in New York.” 
 “Swan,” he starts, his guilt manifesting into something out of his control. “I meant not to…” 
 She giggles at him as she moves into the closet, Corrine mimicking the sound, and punches in the code. The door opens easily and he rolls his eyes as he recalls the effort he had put forth in opening it, thinking himself a fool for even trying. When the door swings open and reveals it’s contents, he wants to bury his head in the sand to quell the embarrassment that plagues him. 
It’s filled with snacks. Bags and bags of chips, poptarts, candies… all of the things she craves and he refuses to let her eat in excess. 
 “You won’t let me keep them in the pantry, so I hide them up here,” she explains. “I’m sorry for being dishonest.” 
 Bloody hell. If there’s one thing that can make him feel even worse about his foolishness, it’s her apologizing to him. “Love, I should--” 
 “I want that one!” Corrine shouts, pointing at the small pastry wrapped in clear plastic. “Mommy, I can have it?” 
 “Now look what you’ve done,” she jokes, playfully rolling her eyes at Killian. “Come on, Coco. Let’s have an apple with this Honey Bun.” 
 ~~~~
 Later in the evening, when they’re sated and panting and she curls into his side to squeeze him tight, his guilt takes over again as the thoughts of what he expected to find in her secret hiding place plague his mind. He’s always quick to ask her to trust him, and he feels as though he’s failed her for not doing so in return. Why he couldn’t let it go-- why he couldn’t tell himself that she wouldn’t dabble in dangerous magic and hide it from him-- he isn’t sure. 
 “What’s going on in there?” she asks when her breathing steadies, lifting her arm from his torso and brushing her fingers along his temple. 
 He smiles down at her and says, “nothing, love. I apologize if I seem distracted.” 
 “Is this about earlier?” she asks thoughtfully, cupping his neck with her palm and stroking her thumb along the line of his jaw. “The safe? Are you mad because I kept it from you?” 
 “No, Swan, never. I only… well, I suppose I should apologize for that. I shouldn’t have attempted to violate your privacy like I did.” 
 She sighs and hugs him close again, pressing a soft kiss to his chest, and whispers, “why did you?”
 Remaining still and silent, he allows the darkness of the room to trick him into a false sense of security. He knows why he did it; he knows it’s because he’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop for months since they broke the last curse. The last curse, because they’ve been cursed countless times before. And with a new baby on the way… he isn’t sure how to care for a newborn with one hand, never mind with some new form of dark magic potentially threatening them. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispers. “I suppose I’m just…” 
 “Waiting for something bad to happen?” 
 “Aye,” he breathes in relief, because of course she would know exactly how he’s feeling and what he’s thinking. “We’ve certainly had our fair share of challenges.” 
 “The dagger is right where we left it,” she promises. “It’s safe, locked away in the basement where it can’t escape. Me and The Apprentice put a spell on it, remember? I promise, nothing is going to happen to us.” Her words are forceful and confident, but her tone is anything but. 
 “Aye, love, you’re right. I’m sorry for doubting you.” 
 “Good. Now, it’s time to move on from this, because only one of us is allowed to freak out at a time and if you're scared, I’m definitely going to get scared soon.” 
 Kissing her temple, he holds her tighter and focuses on the sounds of their breathing filling the silent room. “You don’t have to be scared,” he finally tells her. “Everything is going to be alright. I’m sorry I had a momentary bout of insanity earlier.” 
 “It’s okay,” she whispers. “I love you.” 
 “I love you, too,” he promises, trying his hardest to put aside his assumptions that something catastrophic is about to happen and instead enjoy being here by her side. As if reminding himself as much as her, he says, “we’re alright, love,” before they both drift off to sleep.
~~~~
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can you give me drowsy headcanons, ramble, or anything please, i am so deprived. do not be afraid to make it super long, the more the better, i just love drowsy chaperone and love to hear other people (plus you’re one of the only people i’ve seen who knows a lot abt it)
ASK AND YE SHALL RECIEVE
I’ll divide this into a few different parts, going from least to most excruciatingly sad :)
1. general headcanons
2. in canon things i noticed and think about daily
3. a full analysis of man in chair’s connections with the drowsy chaperone as an in universe show (trigger warning for abuse ment, alcoholism ment, suicide ment)
SECTION ONE: HEADCANONS
- okay the chaperone is trans I don’t make the rules
- also her name is ambrosia :) she forsook her last name :)
- she’s about 12 years older than janet and kinda hung with janet’s family after leaving her own for a while . essentially she’s a big sister to janet
- aldolpho has some lines where he asks if the bride is big and/or burly and while in canon this is supposed to show he’s kind of a womanizer I like to believe it’s because he was fully prepared to fight her if needed
- speaking of which Of Course janet is ripped she does gymnastics
- my batshit crazy headcanon for this show is that dee dee allen from the prom is a descendant of roman bartelli no I will not elaborate
- is aldolpho one of those bitches with pets that definitely shouldn’t be legal? yessir
- post show kitty becomes a star okay I just want her to be happy
- the “pastry chefs” do discover a love of baking post show and now run a shop along with performing in feldzeig’s follies which might maybe be a front for some crime too
- TRIX DROWSY AND ALDOLPHO WORLD TRAVELING POLYCULE CAUSING PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE
- underling’s name is james I will not elaborate on this either
- show never says what trix does so I’ve decided she’s an explorer. she charts maps and punches colonialists and drags her stupid friends along with her, the only bitch in the show with a braincell
- drowsy was a former vaudeville child star pre transition - she left the business but was a mentor to janet
- I do have a headcanon for mic’s name but in the spirit of every actor who’s ever played him I won’t fucking tell
SECTION TWO: SHIT I NOTICED
- robert refers to himself by full name a lot of the time which is v interesting given he’s named after the writer, bob martin (whose wife is also named janet van de graaf). the real bob martin is like five feet away at all times playing mic
- idk how to describe it but the dynamic kitty and feldzeig (VICTOR felgzeig. we have a name from one (1) line) have when talking to each other is so snappy and funny and good
- aldolpho’s lines in spanish are mostly romantic bullshit but his first one hints that he has/had a wife who, if we’re taking the translation literally, refused to touch him. yeah I’ll bring this up in analysis
- the “pastry chefs” provide liquor for the wedding even though it has absolutely no relevance to their mission of stopping it :)
- drowsy is like. SUPER endearing towards janet and despite her bad social skills it’s super clear she cares a lot about her
- robert speaks fluent french apparently
- everyone says “ew” after aldolpho reveals his affair with drowsy despite her being a certified milf
- the body language of drowsy in the end of the show where she takes mic’s hands and breaks the barrier between reality and fiction is just so good. she was iconic the whole show but I honestly think this final bit is what won beth leavel the Tony in the end
SECTION THREE: OH NO
before diving into the way the drowsy chaperone affects his character, we need to understand what exactly it’s playing off of. to fully understand mic’s attachment to the drowsy chaperone, we need to outline what led him to isolating himself and living in fiction to the extent that he does.
mic’s father left his family at an early age and his semi estranged alcoholic mother was the one who began his love for theatre. mic grew up in a broken household and eventually moved on to land in a one sided marriage, which lasted a few months until he slipped up and expressed his discomfort with the situation, after which he and his wife split. nowadays, he lives alone in his apartment surrounded by records he uses to escape to a better life - his favorite of which being the one his mother gave him, the drowsy chaperone.
symbolism in the drowsy chaperone regarding mic’s life can be split into two main categories - mommy issues and internalized homophobia. there isn’t nearly as much mom symbolism as there is the latter, so I’ll cover that first.
drowsy covers both bases, but she definitely has some undeniable mom symbolism going on. drowsy marries aldolpho and mom dreams of being swept off her feet by a latin lover, both feel they’ve wasted their chances at love, both drink to forget, etc. this is where the idea of the drowsy chaperone being mic’s ideal way for things to work out, a positive parallel, comes into play. given that we don’t hear too much about mic’s mom other than her connections to major life events and the record itself, we can assume they grew apart in one way or another. the key difference is that drowsy finds a happy relationship for herself and retains her bond with janet, unlike what we’re led to assume mom was like.
further elaborating on the drowsy chaperone representing mic’s ideal fantasy version of events is the wedding the drowsy chaperone’s plot centers around. here’s a list of the things that didn’t stop that damn wedding:
- a minister not showing up
- the groom cheating on the bride with the bride
- the bride having a complete mental breakdown
- indirect mafia interference
- direct mafia interference
on the flip side, what little mic says about his wedding indicates it sucked absolute ass. he spent the entire ceremony in internal distress as he went through with a life changing event he, at that point, knew at least a bit that he didn’t want. I think he also implies he had severe diarrhea on the wedding day? it gets worse when you realize mic’s relationship before the wedding wasn’t any good for him either - he was playing along the whole time because it would be cruel not to, right?
throughout the show, mic is pretty clearly shown as an extremely repressed gay man. there are five specific instances that point at romantic and/or sexual attraction to men directly and another moment outside of his commentary that pretty much confirms it if you look a little bit deeper. thus, here is what I propose - to mic, the drowsy chaperone’s wedding plot represents a world where he was able to ignore that part of himself and have a happy marriage with his wife despite all the overwhelming obstacles thrown at him. however, bits and pieces of that internalized homophobia manage to show themselves throughout the drowsy chaperone anyway despite its happy ending. here’s a rundown on a few significant instances:
- by the end of the show, the “pastry chefs”, who had literally been planning to kill feldzeig, have left their life of crime to perform with him. this symbolizes how in mic’s ideal world he would have been able to turn away from what he perceived at the time as living wrongly - his homosexuality
- at the same time, the “pastry chefs” have this line, spoken in regards to janet: “if she gets married and leaves the show... there ain’t no show.” this is a take on mic’s subconscious concern that he might lose himself if he goes on with his marriage pretending everything is alright - of course, as we already know, he doesn’t listen
- “cold feets” is a pretty obvious instance of mic’s hesitation
- aldolpho’s line in spanish regarding the wife who won’t touch him flips to reflect on mic’s treatment of his own ex wife - she was alien to him as a lover, just as aldolpho was to this woman
- janet recalls her meeting robert at a point in the show and states “we spooned, briefly, then he proposed.” though mic’s relationship pre marriage was much longer than that, it must have felt that way to him - just as quick and nonsensical as janet describes
- just as janet is caught in showbiz but has a toxic love for it, so does mic with his own repressed life
- janet has a line in “show off” that alludes to her experiencing harassment/assault: “I don’t wanna be cheered no more/ praised no more/ grabbed no more/ touched no more/ loved no more” , which I believe represents the way mic perceived his intimacy with his wife - labeled as love yet unenjoyable for him
- “I look into his eyes... I get all woozy. and that’s... love, isn’t it?” is another very clear nod to mic’s misconception of love based off the only thing he’s ever experienced, relationships with women he’s had to fake
- this is the part where I tell you the lyrics to toledo surprise are a metaphor for actively suppressing gay thoughts. I’ll just leave you with “if it tries to rise; don’t let it”. these lyrics are not comprehensive enough to make a dish - trust me, I have tried. it’s also notable that they serve a double entendre as instructions on how to beat the shit out of someone, but several lyrics are also directed towards the singer/audience. for example: “it’s a snap/ try it folks/ whip your whites/ split your yolks” is an easy metaphor for the unhealthy mental gymnastics required to repress oneself so wholeheartedly
it’s also worth noting the obvious just for the sake of it - mic copes with all this by isolating himself in a safe spot where he can use musicals to escape and live his ideal fantasy, even if it’s only for a short time. there are plenty of nods to this throughout the drowsy chaperone as well. in “as we stumble along” drowsy notes that “the best that we can do is hope a bluebird/ will sing a song/ as we stumble along” - to mic, musicals are his bluebird. while mic mostly indulges in these fantasies, he knows to a certain extent the sheer amount of time he’s spending in them is unhealthy. the first line of the show is “I hate theatre” and I think that to an extent? he does. obviously mic loves theatre as a concept, that can’t be denied. what he hates is the way he’s allowed it to confine him.
with all that out of the way, let’s move on to the most important moment of the show. if you’ve ever seen the show, you’ll know exactly which scene I’m talking about immediately. I’m referring to, of course, the infamous “l-ve while you can” scene. as janet stands at the alter she asks drowsy for one final word of advice, which is partially obscured by aldolpho dropping his cane. “l-ve while you can.” it’s a simple moment, but mic reveals to us that he’s been agonizing over it for years - did drowsy say “live” or “leave”? it occurs to everyone eventually, whether a couple days after the show like with me, or years after like with bob martin’s replacement on broadway that the most likely answer is that she had said “love while you can”. it’s this moment, when you realize why mic had never seen that as an option, that the drowsy chaperone’s status as a musical within a comedy within a tragedy is solidified. mic had no love in his life - his parents hated each other and he was forcing himself into relationships in which he felt nothing. to him, living and leaving were options, but loving never was. so he locked himself away.
as the final note on the record is playing, all power in mic’s apartment shuts down and the fantasy is ruined. the superintendent arrives and further invades his space, breaking the private sanctity he had built up for so long. she fixes the power and before mic can stop it from happening, the final note of the record plays. and the super recognizes it as a musical. she makes a remark about how much her wife loves musicals and leaves, completely unaware of what she’s just done.
mic sits in silence for a while. and then he begins to sing. gradually, the cast members begin to echo their songs, dancing around him but never touching him. then drowsy appears and sings harmony to mic. and she takes his hands. the show ends with the entire cast, including mic, taking off on trix’s airplane as the curtain falls, drowsy handing mic his record as the plane takes off.
some people interpret the ending as mic committing suicide, finally deciding between live and leave. I don’t personally believe that and neither does writer and original mic bob martin, but it’s still a valid interpretation. the drowsy chaperone’s ending is ambiguous, yes, but not to that extent. no matter what you believe the ending means, it was brought on not by the interruption of the fantasy, but by whatever realization the super’s remark about her wife triggered. as I see it, there are two main options here.
option one - mic realizes he still has time to live and to love. when he was younger the prospect of living as himself was unthinkable to him, yet now he sees that while he was spending countless years alone the world grew. drowsy offers mic her hand, an invitation to finally become what he had admired in her - someone who isn’t anywhere near perfect, but is damn well trying and living life without regret. he accepts.
option two - mic realizes that while he spent years alone the world moved on without him and he’s isolated himself so much from social interaction that he’d no longer be able to make a meaningful connection with anyone outside. so he stays inside instead, never trying, always trapped between live and leave. drowsy offers mic her hand - at least he’ll have a tune to carry with him.
I really want to believe we got option one. I think option one is the intended, really, given mic ends the show with a joyful goodbye to the audience. but the way that the ending is still left open for interpretation makes it so that we can never really know - we as the audience only get to be privy to a small part of mic’s life, and we don’t get the answers we want because at the end of the day they’re irrelevant to us - all we can do is make our own choice.
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