#because All of A Sudden The Operator was in the room with them and that's what made the difference

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 18 - Something In The Static

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I’d like to dedicate this chapter to my friend who I finally got to watch the Boys and we’re talking about Soldier Boy and I have to pretend I’m not doing this and be very normal about the conversation.

Also for everyone who's gonna say “why is Ezekiel alive”, Butcher never went all tentacle tumor on us, and therefore Ezekiel is still very much alive. “Well how did Butcher survive their encounter” idk maybe he kissed Ezekiel and then just ran away.

Chapter Title from Not Strong Enough by boygenius

Word Count: 25.7k......

Chapter Summary/Warnings: The Believe Expo is underway, and everyone is dealing with a lot of emotions. Usual warnings, time two. We're looking at angst and smut and (minimal) fluff. Just a hodgepodge of everything.

Read on A03!

Chapter 17 - Chapter 19

Coconut might be the worst smell in the world. Not real coconut, but this fake, chemical coconut that was everywhere in Homelander’s apartment. Everywhere on Homelander. Too sweet and impossible to not think about. It burns your nose, and you’re starting to wonder if it’s some kind of poison cologne. Something designed to make him even harder to stand against, because you always have to use a hand to block the smell from your nose. You’d never smelled it in the white room, but Homelander always went through an airlock before he visited you. This is just him, all the time, and you’re choking on it. 

He still hadn’t touched you. And they hadn’t locked you back down. You think that, between Noir’s sudden and heroic death very vaguely “defending our country” and the the CIA releasing a statement that you’re being held against your will by Vought—you’re surprised Mallory didn’t take the disavowing you entirely path, but here you are—Sage is too busy putting out fires to convince Homelander that you didn’t break that easy. That, after Noir II, you’d gotten back up. Revised your role, changing how you played it, and kept moving. You would not break, not like this, not where Homelander could see it. He didn’t fucking deserve to see you break, really break. He could think he’d gotten you to understand, but you would never allow him to see what you breaking really looked like.

You would break—really break, with screams and sobs and nails in your skin and not getting back up—when you got home. When you could cry into Ben’s chest, and he could keep your nails on his arm instead of your own. He’d pick you up. He’d pick you up in strong, safe arms and carry you to bed, holding you as long you asked him to. Everything would smell like pine and Ben, and you’d be able to break without the freezing cold making you glue yourself together. You’d just break. 

But not now. Not yet.

Not when there was still work to do.

A-Train had found you a few days after Noir II, after the CIA had responded to your speech. An official statement from the director, co-signed by president Robert Singer, stating that Soldier Boy was indeed a CIA operative, that Vought had no jurisdiction to declare him a public enemy, and that the Anomaly was currently being tortured by Vought to comply with their agenda. They didn’t say the whole truth, because according to them you and Ben were co-workers—nothing more—and Homelander had been obsessed with you since you were both young supes but you’d turned him down numerous times. You wish they had just committed to it. Just told the world what Homelander was, what he’d done to you, but the truth did somehow sound more absurd. And right now wasn’t about the truth, it was about doing what needed to be done. You had to trust that Mallory was smart. That she knew what she was doing. 

It would be really helpful if A-Train had a similar leniency. 

“What are they doing?” He’d skidded to a stop in front of you again, in another too-fancy bathroom at another boring event. 

You’d held up a single finger, taking a long, deep breath. You were curled up on the floor, under a hand-dryer that you kept pushing the button of to make the warm air blast onto your head. It was helpful, it made you feel a little more alive and was a lot more sustainable than constant vomiting. 

A-Train had just kept talking, pacing in front of you. “Sage is really not happy, there’s no fucking way I can risk talking to MM now. That was not smart, that shit you did on TV. You know why Sage isn’t here? The Deep went to a fucking Panera last night without telling anyone and Sage is pulling camera footage to make sure he’s telling the truth. And Noir is dead-“ 

“Can you please shut up?” You’d muttered, tapping against your calves. “I know what I did. I knew there would be consequences. I’m willing to live with them.” 

“Well, I’m not!” A-Train’s feet had stopped in front of you, and you’d reached up to hit the button again. Letting the hot air push on the top of your head, calming you as he continued. “This isn’t just about you, you’re not the only one who’s suffering-“ 

“I could say the same to you.” 

“Come on-“ 

“I’m serious,” you’d looked up at him with a scowl as the wind above you stopped once more. “This is good. Ben can help them now, Annie has more fuel against Vought, and Butcher and Mallory will know how to work this.” 

“Fine, but I’m not helping you at all if you keep this shit up,” A-Train had snapped your name. “I’ve got people, I can’t risk my nephews for this-“ 

“Okay.” 

He’d blinked at you. “Okay? That’s it?” 

“Yeah. Okay.” You’d shrugged. “I can’t make you help me. If you won’t, you won’t. I can handle this myself.” 

“You’re really not going to lecture me about being a hero, or doing the right thing?” 

You’d shaken your head, looking back down at the floor. “I don’t really have legs to stand on there. I got Noir II killed, I killed Firecracker, I’ve destroyed at least two buildings and gotten a lot of other, innocent people killed by proximity. I mean, fuck, I’m in love with Soldier Boy-“ 

You hadn’t meant to say that. It had fallen out of your mouth and you’d stuttered to a stop, but it was too late. When you looked back up at A-Train, his mouth was hanging open. 

“You-“ 

“Please don’t tell anyone that,” you’d whispered. “I didn’t mean to tell you that, I’m just exhausted-“ 

“I’m not going to.” A-Train had still been frowning at you. “I mean, I don’t really care about your personal shit. Even if it’s being in love with Soldier Boy.” A-Train had frowned. “Isn’t he technically Homelander’s father?” 

“Yeah,” you’d leaned your head back against the wall. “And I’m aware of how fucked up that is.” 

A-Train had shrugged. “All of this is fucked. I don’t think you fucking Soldier Boy is any less fucked than anything else we’ve all done.” 

“We’ve never actually fucked,” you’d mumbled, because you couldn’t stop now. In no world had you foreseen the I’m very in love with Ben and it’s all impossibly confusing and complicated conversation happening in a fancy bathroom with A-Train, but you had started it and now you were apparently incapable of stopping it. “I mean, we’ve done stuff. But not fucking.” 

“Okay.” A-Train had frowned. “Why the fuck are you telling me that?” 

“Because I’m lonely.” You’d looked up at him with a sad smile. “And you’re here.” 

He’d nodded, then moved away. You’d thought he’d left, just pissed off because he didn’t want to deal with this. But he’d dropped against the wall across from you with a sigh, pulling off his visor to meet your eyes. “How long?” 

You’d frowned at him. “How long?” 

“Have you and Soldier Boy been not fucking.” 

“February. But, uh,” you’d shaken your head. “I think I might have been in love with him before that.” 

“Okay,” A-Train had nodded, and kept going. “Does Homelander-“ 

“He found out after the interview. Sage told him.” 

“And your team-“ 

“I’m not sure. They know we’re close, and maybe some of them have figured out it’s more than that, but I’m really not sure.” You’d tilted your head at him. “Why are we talking about this?” 

“I don’t exactly have a lot of friends either.” A-Train muttered. “I killed the only woman I’ve ever loved because Homelander told me to, Sage is a bitch, and the Deep is an idiot. Ashley’s fine, sometimes, but we don’t exactly talk about things that aren’t life or death.” 

“Oh,” you’d nodded. “Okay.” 

It had been silent for a second, both of you watching each other wearily. 

“Does he know?” 

You’d blinked. “Who?” 

“Soldier Boy. Does he know you love him?” 

“No,” your voice had cracked a little, a lump forming in your throat. “It’s complicated.” 

“Does he love you?” 

“No.” 

A-Train had blinked at your answer. “You said that really fast.” 

“He doesn’t,” you’d let out a long breath before continuing. “I’m okay with it. He just doesn’t and it’s fine.” 

He’d looked like he’d wanted to keep pushing. You’re grateful he didn’t, because if you kept talking about Ben you might have started crying. 

“I, uh,” A-Train had shaken his head, foot tapping on the floor. “When I was a kid I wanted to be a hero. Just, while we’re talking about fucked shit, I wanted to be a hero. A real hero. My brother said I could help people, and I really did believe him. And then I just, I got lost. It’s a shit ton harder to be a hero when it’s not just a word. When you actually have to back it up and nobody around you seems to care. Now it’s probably too fuckin late.” 

“I don’t think it’s ever too late,” you’d watched him carefully, speaking slowly. “You can always change. Humans aren’t static. We’re always changing. It’s a strange kind of exceptionalism to think you’re immune to that. To think you’re special enough to not be capable of being better.” 

A-Train had narrowed his eyes at you. “What are you talking about.”

“I dedicated my whole life before this to studying people,” you’d held his gaze, not wavering on your words. “And you realize pretty fast that concepts of good and bad are different across the world. It’s not something that’s fixed, because people aren’t fixed. We’re not born good or bad. We are who we are, who we’ll be, but we also make choices. I mean,” you’d shrugged. “You can keep doing good things, or bad things, or nothing at all. But you’re never incapable of doing something different. If you think you can’t, it’s because you think you’re too good to be better. But everyone is always capable of being better.” 

“Like Soldier Boy?” 

“Like Ben,” you’d whispered. “He’s better. And he’s good. Really good.” 

“And you really love him?” 

You’d swallowed. “Yeah. A lot.” 

A-Train had nodded. “You think he’ll be waiting for you?” 

“Yes.” You’d answered without hesitation. Ben may not love you, but he’d never leave you. If you knew one thing in all of this, it was that Ben would never leave you. “He will.” 

“Then what?” 

You’d frowned at him. “What are you talking about?” 

“When this is over. If you win,” A-Train had shrugged. “Then what?” 

“I,” you’d shaken your head. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.” 

“You have to have a reason you’re still going,” A-Train had leaned forward slightly. “It can’t just be because you’re a fucking good person.” 

“I’m not-“ 

“Yeah, you are.” A-Train had rolled his eyes. “You’re better than me, than all of us. Congratulations, you did it. You won the stupid contest.”

“I didn’t-”

He’d kept going, ignoring your protest. “But you have to have something you want. Everyone has something they want. That’s how this shit gets out of control.” He’d sighed. “You get promised the thing you want and never fully get it. Then it’s never enough.” 

“I don’t have anything I want,” you’d mumbled. “Just for this to be over.” 

“After that,” A-Train had snapped. “You’ve got to think of after. Otherwise you’ll just burn out.” 

“Butcher-“ 

“Is a vengeance fueled asshole. That dude might not have an after. I want my family back. So does MM. Hughie and Annie probably want a peaceful, boring fucking life. Ashley wants a year at a spa. What do you want.” 

You’d swallowed. “I don’t know.” 

“Think about it. What did you want before?”

“To do something important,” you’d said softly, rubbing circles against your arms. “Have a job where I helped people, where I was respected in my field. Then go home to someone who loved me, who I’d built a life with. A life that was mine.”

“Then do that. When this is all finally fucking done, build a life.” 

“I can’t,” you’d shaken your head, eyes blurred from tears. “I wanted to get married. I wanted a job. I wanted kids.” You choke slightly. “I don’t, I can’t be sure any of that is even possible anymore. Not after this.” 

“You can do whatever you want.” A-Train’s voice had been sharp. “Don’t let all these assholes control you, change how you live your life. You can do all that, or none of it, but you do it.” He’d sighed. “Don’t let them make you lose people. Lose happiness. They don’t deserve to have that kind of control over you.” 

“Thank you,” you’d smiled softly, and he’d shrugged. 

“Sure.” 

You’d given a dry laugh. “They really just fuck everything up, don’t they.” 

“Fucking everything,” A-Train had nodded with a small smile that had fallen fast. “I still can’t help you. Not like you asked. My family-“ 

“It’s fine,” you’d met his eyes with a sigh. “I’ll find something else.” 

“You’re serious?” 

“Yeah,” you’d shrugged. “I can move things around, find another way. You can still help.” You’d given him a tight smile. “You can be better. But you should leave the bathroom. They might start looking for us soon.” 

He’d nodded and stood, giving you one last look before leaving. “Thanks.” 

“No problem.” 

The air whooshed, and you were alone on the floor of the bathroom again. 

We could go to Rome, Ben’s voice had hummed around you. When all this shit is over, we can always go to fucking Rome. 

I’d love to go to Rome. You’d smiled into the empty air around you. I’d love anywhere, as long as you were there. 

Because you love me. 

Because I love you. You’d leaned back again, hitting the button above you one last time. Ben, really I love you. It’s kind of stupid how much I love you. 

Are you ever actually going to fucking tell me that? 

Maybe. You’d sighed. Maybe one day in a million years I’ll grow some balls and tell you. 

What would you say? 

It doesn’t matter. 

Shut the fuck up. When you tell me you love me, which you will because you’re not a pussy, what are you going to say. 

Benjamin. 

Don’t Benjamin me, I’m fucking helping. 

You’re not real.

So you can fucking tell me. If I’m not real it won’t goddamn matter. 

The air turned off, and the bathroom had still been empty. 

You’d started to hum. A simple love song, just so you could see his face. Look at him. 

He was so fucking handsome. You'd almost started crying because he was right there, tall and broad and standing in front of you, grinning at you but not real. You couldn’t feel him, not really, because your sensory manipulation didn’t extend to emotion. So you could grab Fake Ben’s hand and feel his warm skin but not him. You couldn’t feel Ben, strong and resolved and everything. But you could smell pine, and feel his hand trace along your jaw. You could grab it and hold it there—let Fake Ben trace circles on your cheek with his thumb—and try to pretend it was real. Pretend it was enough. 

I love you. Your words had to stay in your head, because if you stopped humming to talk aloud Fake Ben would disappear and you needed to keep looking at him. I love you like the ocean loves the moon and the sun loves the stars. I love you like the birds want to sing and the caterpillar longs to be a butterfly. I love you like the grass loves the rain and the lighting loves the thunder. Like the flower loves the bee and the snail loves its shell. I love you like you’re music I get to sing and light I get to eat. I love you like the spiderweb loves the spider and the grave loves the flowers. I love you like a mirror loves to shatter and the alter loves the blood. I love you like the devil loves fire and like god loves the devil. I love you, Ben. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ll love you until all the world is scattered across the sky and we’re both trapped in the spaces that remain between. I’ll love you until my voice is gone and my heart is only still beating because you’re holding it. I’ll love you until everything is burning away and it’s just you and me. If they find a way to kill us I’ll love you as a ghost and my skeleton will keep one hand on yours. I love you because all my bones and muscles fit in with your bones and muscles, and because my soul is mine but it’s stronger when it’s yours as well. I love you, Ben. I love you. 

You’d cried. No sobs wracking your body, but small tears you couldn’t hold in. Tears you’d let Fake Ben wipe away before you’d had to let him go, and then wiped again yourself because they were real, and he hadn’t been. And you’d returned to Homelander, smiled through the party in a green velvet dress that didn’t fit and said words you didn’t mean. Let Homelander herd you wherever he wanted and kept your head together. Taken in even breaths of horrible coconut and smiled with no teeth at people with eyes like monsters. Looking at you like you were a prey that they couldn’t have because the apex predator had decided you were his. 

You didn’t throw up that night. You’d stared into the dark, cold air and talked to the phantom of Ben trapped in your head. 

And you’d sat in the fire. Not alight under your skin, but pulsing in a small, warm ember. Awake. Growing. 

By the time you’re sat in the Seven’s meeting room, with all four remaining members and Ashley, it was stronger. Beginning to smoke along your veins. 

“We’ll all be attending the Believe Expo tomorrow,” Sage’s arms are crossed as she glares around the table. “It’s important to appear as a unified front, and this is our primary base. Many non-christian supporters will be in attendance this year, as the association between Homelander and Christianity is becoming interchangeable in the public eye. Which also means we’re leaning away from actual biblical rhetoric, and into our own narrative. We can’t completely disavow the religious aspect, so we’ll have to walk a careful line between not alienating the new people and indoctrinating the old ones. Everyone will get their scripts tonight.” 

The Deep raises his hand, and Sage rolls her eyes but nods for him to speak. 

“Uh, aren’t they going to notice if a,” he frowns at Sage, looking her up and down. “Muslim is leading the Christ Show?” 

“No, because I’m an atheist, dumbass.” Sage snaps. “And I can recite the bible from front to back. All you have to do is show up, do what I tell you, and not say you’re in love with an octopus again. Understood?” 

The Deep looks at Homelander for an order to say yes or no, but Homelander’s not paying attention. He’s staring up at you, standing where he’d told you to. Silently at his side, like a statue he’d collected. When The Deep coughs, Homelander scoffs and waves a hand. 

“Just do whatever the woman fucking tells you to.” 

“Yes, sir.” The Deep nods, and then gives Sage a nervous look. 

Homelander is still staring at you. 

“Sage,” he says slowly. Not looking away. “I want to see her script.” 

“I haven’t written her one,” Sage glares at you. “Anomaly will be on stage for your speech at the end of the program, and you’ll kiss her. That’s her role.” 

Your nails dig into your wrist, both held behind your back. Breathe. You just have to breathe and get through this and not break. One kiss will not break you. One touch will not open the floodgates. You can’t scream or run because you’ll lose. You can breathe now and fall apart later. 

Homelander says your name, and it makes your skin itch. “Is going to give a speech. The people need to care about her, especially with the CIA and Starlight spewing all those fucking lies about her. About us. 

Sage shakes her head. “Homelander-“ 

He turns, shooting her a sharp glare. “I’m not fucking asking. Write her a speech.” 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Sage says cooly. “Not after-“ 

“I dealt with that,” Homelander’s voice raises slightly, and Sage falls silent. She doesn’t flinch, but she doesn’t keep pushing either. “I am telling you that you are going to write her a speech. You can either do it yourself, or I’ll have those fucking idiot writers do it for you.” 

Sage’s eyes narrow, but she nods. “Fine.” 

Homelander nods, looking back to you. “Sage?” 

She sighs. “What.” 

“Make it about love.” He smiles at you, and nothing has ever been harder than smiling back. 

The first thing you learn about the Believe Expo—something that until two weeks ago you’d been pretty certain wasn’t a thing anymore—is that it’s loud. Everything is so loud. Homelander flies you there through the cold mist and wind of the morning before telling you to practice your speech and shooting back up into the sky. They’re only setting up—workers dressed in black adjusting lights and testing speakers that ring screeching feedback through the air—and it’s already too much. People are moving everywhere, marking spots on the stage floor and arranging seats and trying to get cloth covers to stay on the tables. You’re lost in how loud it is, and almost get run over by a man carrying a large box that spills out cables as it collides with you. 

“Fuck!” You flinch at his shout, dropping down to help gather the wires scattered across the damp grass as he continues. “Goddamnit girl, we’re already behind schedule, I don’t have the fucking time-“ 

You look up at him to apologize, and he freezes. “I’m-“ 

“It’s fine,” he mumbles, almost pushing you away from the mess. “I’m sorry I yelled, ma’am. I promise there won’t be any delays for the event.” 

You blink at him, rubbing his neck and refusing to meet your eyes, but before you can ask any questions someone taps on your shoulder and says your name. 

“Thank fuck I found you, your trailer is ready.” 

“My trailer?“ You turn to see Ashely, holding a clipboard and tapping her foot. Looking around at the stage work with a tense expression. “Ashley, I don’t-“ 

“I’ll show you where it is. And don’t clean that up, it’s not your job.” 

“But-“ 

“You!” She points her pencil at a woman standing off the side, holding a coffee. “Clean this up, now.” 

“Ma’am, I’m uh, I’m on break-“ 

“I don’t fucking care, clean it! And you-“ Ashley’s glare turns back to you, still crouched on the ground. “Let’s go.” 

She grabs your arms and starts to pull you up, and something wraps around your throat and hands, trying to squeeze all the oxygen out of your body. Everything is sharp, too sharp, moving too fast and yet not fast enough. 

You yank your arm away the moment you’re on your feet, half because you don’t think Ashley remembers you can feel her and half because that was completely unbearable. You follow her off the stage, waiting until you’re out of the crews’ earshot to quicken your pace, walking at her side and speaking in a low voice. 

“You shouldn’t touch me, Ashley.” 

“What?” She shoots you a quick glare. “Don’t be dramatic, I was just helping you stand up-“ 

“You touched me. Your hand touched my arm. I felt you.” 

“So? It’s not like I-“

“Ashley.” You stop walking and wait for her to turn around. “I felt you.” 

“What the fuck are-“ Her angry expression falls, her face goes pale “Oh, I, I forgot, fuck-“ 

“It’s fine,” you say quickly. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. You just, uh, you shouldn’t touch me.” 

“I didn’t mean to, I’m- shit! I-“ 

“I’m not mad,” you frown at her. “I’m just reminding you. Don’t touch me unless you’re okay with me feeling it.” 

She nods tightly, hands pulling at her hair, and swallows before speaking. “Don’t tell Homelander I touched you. He doesn’t want us to touch you.” 

You feel the cold bloom inside you again, but manage to push it down. Give Ashley a tight nod. “I won’t.” 

“Can we go to the trailer now?” She looks down at the clipboard. “Fuck, we were supposed to be at the trailer five minutes ago-“ 

“Where is it?” 

“Just over there, but-“ 

“I can find it.” You start to walk away, in the general direction Ashley had pointed, but she calls your name and you stop. “What-“ 

“We’re not supposed to leave you on your own.” She’s tugging at her hair still, looking between you and the clipboard. “I technically should’ve been there when Homelander dropped you off-“ 

“I’m not going to run away, Ashely.” You sigh. “Please, just go do whatever you need to.” 

She looks like she might protest for a second, but looks back at the clipboard and gives a tight nod. “Okay. Go.“ 

“Great.” You start to turn again, but Ashley calls your name again. 

“What-“ 

“Um, thanks.” She mutters, gives you a tense smile. “And please, don’t try to fucking escape-“

“I won’t. I can’t.” You turn, and finally manage to get away before Ashley can see the anguish on your face. 

You could escape, Sunshine. Ben’s voice carries on the wind. Or I could come fucking get you. 

We’ve had this conversation. You can’t come get me, they’ll put you back under. 

I don’t give a shit. You should be home. With me. 

I know, but I can’t. Not yet. 

You fucking should, though. This is some insane, cum guzzling bullshit. And you are not fucking kissing Homelander. 

I’m not exactly thrilled about it either, Benjamin. 

Not for me, brat. Because he’s a fucking pussy who shouldn’t be allowed within a million miles of you. 

You have to stop your internal fight with Ben’s voice, because you reach the trailer and are immediately surrounded by people doing your hair and makeup, shoving Sage’s script into your hands for you to memorize. There will be a teleprompter, because Sage isn’t an idiot who thinks the Deep will remember anything for more than fifteen minutes—let alone a whole script from the time he’s in his trailer to four hours later when he’s on stage—but you still want to read it. To know what’s coming. 

It’s what you expected in its entirety. A lot of propaganda. A lot of lies. A lot of anecdotes that never happened and some musings about love that sound like a sociopath wrote them. I love Homelander because he completes me. I see us in every great romance in history. He is the thing that gets me up in the morning. 

You can hear the crowd outside now. People start to filter into the venue, more and more in larger and larger waves until the trailer feels as if it’s shaking. 

But you manage to keep it together. To keep reading as your finger taps on the chair and a blonde woman you’ve never seen before—and will likely never see again—pins your hair tight against your head and applies chemicals that would probably burn your scalp if you didn’t heal in that same second. 

I want to start a family with him. Lead the best life we can together. 

You put the script down, and once your hair and makeup team is gone you scramble to the trash can and empty the bile of your stomach until you can breathe. 

You just have to get through this. You just have to keep moving. 

They’d put you back in the supe costume. It’s better fitted than last time, but still just hideous. Uncomfortable and impractical and ugly. It feels wrong on your body, not just because it’s showing too much skin and the lace is scratching at your skin but because it’s not you. Supe costumes in general are dumb, because it’s not an outfit on a person, it’s a label on a product. Ben’s lucky he has a stupid handsome face that makes him attractive in everything or you’d have made fun of him ruthlessly about his own. 

You still fucking did that. You said I looked like a Christmas tree that’s been sent to war on the draft. 

And I’ve have said more if I didn’t want to climb that tree and let it fuck me. 

You called me an R rated G.I. Joe Doll. 

You are an R rate G.I. Joe Doll, Pretty Boy. I was being accurate and poetic. 

Brat. 

Cunt. 

You take a long breath, and grab the script again. Just get through this. You’ll break later, but right now you have to get through this. 

I’m excited to lead a great life with Homelander, for our love story to be remembered as one from a fairytale. Because he is my prince, my white knight who saved me from the dark. Homelander you’re my soulmate- 

Soulmate my fucking blue balls. Ben’s voice mutters in your head, and you can almost see his scowl. The pussy doesn’t even like you. 

Soulmates aren’t real, Ben. 

Still, you’re not his damn soulmate. 

Well, I’m not yours. Or anyones. Because soulmates aren’t real. 

But you love me. 

I do. That doesn’t mean we’re soulmates. You don’t even love me, Benjamin. Something hurts deep, deep inside you and against your skull. I think soulmates, if they were real, which they aren’t, are both supposed to love each other. 

Inside your chest, something pounds and beats against your lungs and ribs. Something powerful and bloody and desperate. The slight blur of the world vanishes—you hadn’t even noticed it before—and everything is clear and warm and angry. 

Why are you so fucking sure I don’t love you? 

What? 

You keep telling me I don’t love you. What makes you so damn positive? 

You don’t. 

I do. 

You blink into the empty trailer. No, you don’t. 

I fucking do. The thing inside you rages, and you’re not sure if it’s yours or not. You’re not touching anybody, and it doesn’t feel foreign or out of place inside you. But you’ve never felt something like this. It’s focused and pious and entirely made of something monstrous that you can’t name. It’s not dangerous, nothing about it feels dangerous—it reminds you of Ben, and he’d never hurt you—but it’s still the most intensely starved and insatiable feeling you’ve ever experienced. 

No, even in your head your voice is slow and confused. You don’t. 

You’re not the fucking boss of me.

I am literally the fucking boss of you. I am the government-appointed boss of you. 

I think they stripped that title from you when they realized we didn’t exactly have an appropriate boss-employee relationship, Sunshine. 

Fuck you. 

You did, that was the problem. 

You watch too much porn, Pretty Boy. I’m not a boss fucking her secretary and causing a scandal. 

I wasn’t your fucking secretary. 

Good thing, too. You’d have been terrible at it. I’d have asked you to check my calendar and you’d have destroyed the computer. 

You wouldn’t have been too mad about it. I’d have fucked your brains out on the desk and you’d have forgiven me. 

I would not have forgiven you. Computers are expensive. 

Then I’d buy you a damn new one, then fucked your brains out. And then you’d have forgiven me. Because I’d have told you I love you, and you’d have cum all over my cock, and you’d forgive me. 

You think your heart stops for a second, restarting with the jolt of that strange feeling in your chest. In your head your voice is breathless. Ben, please stop saying that. 

No. 

You don’t love me- 

I fucking do. 

No, you don’t. This feels like a strange hill for you to die on, convincing the phantom voice in your head of the man you love that he doesn’t love you back. But you press on. Stop saying that you do. It’s mean. 

Why the hell is it mean. Saying that I love you is the opposite of damn mean- 

Because I really, really, love you! And it’s mean to lie to me and try and convince me that Real Ben might love me! 

The thing roars inside you. What- 

The door to the trailer opens, and Ashley walks in without warning, eyes glued to her phone. The thing in you flares, and then it’s gone. 

“You’re on,” she looks up, giving you a once over before her eyes land on the abandoned script at your feet. “Did you read it?” 

You kind of read it. You didn’t finish it, but you’ve got the gist, so you nod. 

“Good,” Ashley looks back to her phone. “Are you ready?” 

You nod again, pulling yourself up from the floor, and are about to walk out the door when Ashley holds out an arm to block your path. You almost run into it, and you both flinch back, Ashley nearly dropping her phone. 

“You need to wear your disguise,” she says quickly, pulling her arms back. “People will swarm you.” 

The prep-team had left you a large hoodie with Homelander’s smiling face printed across it, a Vought baseball cap, and black sunglasses. You glance in the mirror after you change, and you look like an idiot. You feel like an idiot. If this all wasn’t so dangerous and precarious, it would be plain stupid. 

But, because the universe is strange and uncaring, this is incredibly important. You have to wear Homelander’s face on your body, because you can’t protest or it will blow everything. You have to wear a stupid baseball cap—which is going to ruin your stupid hair—because people can’t see your face. It’s the same reason you put on the sunglasses that pinch your nose, and make yourself follow Ashley out into the densely packed crowd. You don’t have another choice. 

There are too many people. The first thing you realize is that there are far too many people, and you’re going through them. They’re bumping your arms and legs, brushing against your skin in accidental passing, and it’s going to make you explode. Everything is too bright and loud and everything is like a live wire. Everyone is so excited, and all you’re getting is fleeting passes of their overzealous, stabbing feelings before being plunged right back into your own cold fear. Spreading faster, not fully overtaking the fire but making it grow dim. Pushing it further away. 

By the time you’re dropped off in a small tent—A-Train and the Deep playing cards at a fold-out table, Sage and Homelander nowhere to be found—your blood is rushing through your body and ramming against your throat and ears. Trying to escape your body. You almost immediately collapse into a chair, trying to take long breaths and think about happy things. 

Music. The music playing over the loudspeakers is deafening. Off-rhythm gospel music that’s like nails digging into your brain. 

City lights. There isn’t any life or joy in the light around you. The sun is behind the clouds, and the flood lights are hidden in a mist that makes the whole world just gray. 

Ben. Ben isn’t here. With you. And all you can do is miss him. 

Something claws at your heart, but you can’t spare the time or energy to feel it. It’s loud and tight, almost impossible to ignore, but you manage to just close your eyes and try to find something happy. Try to make something happy. A-Train and the Deep are fighting in the background. It’s so loud, and you’re growing cold again. You can’t see anything but the gray, can’t feel anything but a metal chair below you and the fog around you, and can’t hear anything that’s not angry or frantic. 

Fresh air. The air is fresh and smells like rain. You haven’t smelled fresh air in months, and it’s all just clean and easy. Sharp and bright in your lungs, made of the wetlands around you. Mud and pine and grass, stronger than the cold sweat of the crowd. Fresh air. 

You take one last, long, deep breath. You’re not at peace, but this isn’t about peace. It’s about the world being in focus, and being able to just keep going. 

“Hey,” The Deep says your name, and you just stare at him. “We haven’t really talked yet. I’m Deep.” 

You nod. “I know.” 

“Right, of course you do. I mean, you can call me Kevin-“ He extends his hand for you to shake, and A-Train whacks it back. “Bro-“ 

“We’re not supposed to touch her, dumbass.” A-Train’s not looking at you. He hasn’t looked at you since you sat down. “And she’s not going to call you Kevin. Fucking nobody calls you Kevin.” 

“My friends all call me Kevin,” the Deep looks back to you with a wide, white-toothed smile. “I mean, me and Homelander are real tight-“ 

“No, you’re not.” 

“He likes me more-“ 

“Homelander doesn’t give a shit about you,” A-Train rolls his eyes. “It’s your turn. Play or give up.” 

The Deep gives you one last look like he’s going to say something, but turns back around to their game. 

It’s another ten or so minutes before Ashley returns—this time with both the clipboard and her phone—and you have to move. Interviews. Photo ops. Saying all the right words in the right tone with the right body language for the microphones and cameras. 

It’s so loud. The walk—even through a barricaded area—is full of screaming people leaning over metal blockades and the bass of the music, running into your bones. Ashley is recapping Sage’s talking points—The Deep isn’t allowed to talk about marine animals, A-Train needs to talk about gospel and unity, and you shouldn’t speak at all—As the Deep shakes his body out, practicing his smile and introduction and A-Train still doesn’t look at you. 

The powerful thing returns, as you’re back in the open. It’s still violent and alert, strange but not out of place, and it feels like Ben. It’s just Ben, indescribably Ben. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was him, because you know him. You know all of him, all his anger and care and vengeful warmth. You know how he is, how his heart pounds and his will moves everything around him, how everything in him is strong like this is. 

It fades when you're pulled into another tent. Not fully dying out, but growing dull. Far away. 

You’re sat next to A-Train—who just stares ahead into the air and lets them start to mic him—with a reminder not to talk. If you’re asked questions, Sage will answer them for you. You just have to sit there, be pretty, and smile. No matter what happens, what’s being said around you, keep smiling. 

Sage doesn’t show up. There’s a seat saved for her, with her name taped to it and water bottle under it, but she never arrives and Ashley makes everyone keep going. A well dressed woman sits across from you, the cameras turn on, the show begins.

Smile. Don’t talk and smile. Ashley reminds every journalist to greet you and look at you casually but never actually speak to you. They just give you a few smiles and glances, and only two or three actually meet your eyes. Most end up going through the motions and trying to pretend you’re not there. 

You don’t blame them. You’re doing the same. For what feels like eternity you’re sat in a chair—just another prop to the set—and as your face starts to hurt from smiling you stop paying attention. You put energy into trying to find the source of the odd feeling still making a home in your chest, but it’s stubborn. You try and pull it up to the surface and it doesn’t budge, you try and poke it and it just hums. 

It’s exactly like Ben. 

After all I fucking do for you. 

His voice is back. It always comes back. It doesn’t make the thing in you rear and push like it had before, but it’s still everywhere. Humming lowly in the mic feedback and where your foot is tapping the floor. 

Go away. I’m busy. 

His laugh haunts the spaces of silence between the voices around you. I’m not fucking real, Sunshine. I can’t go away. I’m a part of you. 

You’re an annoying part of me. Piss off, Pretty Boy. I’m trying to figure something out. 

Figure what out? 

Shut up. 

Fuck me backwards for trying to help you. 

This isn’t something you can help with, Ben. 

Try me. 

Fine, you try not to sigh aloud. I can feel something. Something I’m not sure I should be feeling. 

What, like horny? Are you horny? Do you miss me and you’re horny? 

No, you fucking dumb dumb. Like an emotion that I can’t understand. 

Well I can’t fucking help with that shit. 

I know. That’s why I told you to go away. 

Whatever. You love me. 

I do. 

The thing responds to that. It roars and starts to claw up your spine, grabbing your heart with firm but gentle hands and trying to pull it around in your body. 

What the fucking shit was that? 

I don’t know. Shut up, I need to test something. Ben, I love you. 

It’s going to kill you. This strange thing inside you is going to rip you to shreds, but before you can test anything further, the interviews are at an end and Ashley is ushering everyone away, dragging you around the venue to take photos. You’re handed countless crosses and bibles to hold up for the camera to see, as if people might not have been previously aware of them. The Deep and A-Train shake hands and pose with fans, you’re put in front of lambs and goats and a very unsettling marble statue of Homelander that’s still somehow warmer than the real one. 

The thing is still there. It keeps growing and waning and spreading and pulling back. As you move through the convention it grows wrathful and deafening, and you can’t figure out what it is. It’s not you. You’re certain it’s not you. You’d been pretty sure before, but now you’re certain. It doesn’t feel wrong, it doesn’t feel out of place, but it’s not you. You’re not consuming like this, you’re not… Parasitic is the wrong word, you decide, because it’s inherently negative. Nothing about this thing is negative. It’s big and demanding and so loud, but it’s almost comfortable. Full of want and content and focused attention. Made of something rough that’s been dedicated to whatever feeds it.  

You just can’t figure out what it wants. It’s hungry, it’s full of such a familiar, Ben-like hunger, but nothing seems to satisfy it. You repeat the words, Ben. Ben, I love you, several times, and it always takes them, but it never grows fully quiet. If anything it’s like offering it salt-water. It pours it down deep, and then grows more demanding. 

If you had more time you’d find somewhere quiet to figure out what the hell is going on. But the sun is starting to fall down, and Ashley is herding you to the backstage area. Ranting about speeches and last minute adjustments and don’t fuck up and- 

It’s just a flash. You only see it for a second, moving beyond the barricade through the crowd, but you still see it. 

Black hair. Long, wavy black hair attached to a short woman. 

Lots of people have black hair. You’ve seen at least twenty women with black hair in the past three hours alone. But you still stop in your path and crane your neck up. Trying to see over the crowd, deeper into the fray. 

You see the hair again. And, this time, the side-profile of the woman it’s attached to. Hooded eyes with eyeliner and a focused determination on her face. 

“Holy shit.” 

Your whisper is only heard by the Deep, who turns to you with a frown. “I thought Sage told us not to swear-“ 

“Ashley!” Your voice is almost a shriek, loud and frantic. “I need to go to the bathroom now!” 

“Hold it,” Ashley says your name without looking up from her phone, continuing to move towards the stage. “We’re on a really fucking tight schedule.” 

“Ashley!” You move to grab her, stop her, make her listen and she flinches back with wide eyes. 

“I-“ 

“I got my period,” you say bluntly. “And, uh, I’m wearing a skirt-“ 

She sigh. “Fine, but be fast-“ 

“I will! Super fast!” You run ahead, into the porta potties dropped near all the stage equipment for the crew. They smell awful, and you probably should’ve chosen a spot that’s meant to hold more than one person, but you’re here now. Now is not the time to second guess anything. 

You wait, just long enough that you start to wonder if A-Train hadn’t heard you or didn’t understand, and wasn’t coming. 

Then the air whooshes, and he’s crammed next to you as the door slams. “What the fuck was that about-“ 

“They’re here,” you don’t wait for him to fully gain his footing in the small space before you speak, and ignore his rush of stress and annoyance when your bodies brush. There’s not enough time. “They’re all here.” 

“Wh-“ 

“Butcher,” you hiss. “MM and Frenchie and Kimiko. Probably Hughie, probably not Annie.” And Ben. Ben is here. 

“Are you sure-“ 

“Yes.” 

“Well, why the fuck are they here-“ 

“I don’t know!” 

“Would you stop fucking interrupting-” 

“No!” You’re running your hand over your face, trying to make your brain move faster. To do something productive, and stop just chanting Ben. Ben, I love you. Ben, you’re here and I can see you and touch you and I love you, Ben, I love you- “I need to think.” 

“Think?” A-Train glares at you. “We need to fucking run, those idiot are always blowing everything-“ 

“Shut up,” you snap. “This is a chance. They’re here for a reason. They’re probably planning something-“ 

“Something stupid-“ 

“Shut up!” You’re almost shouting. There’s no time for this, you need to figure out what they’re doing here and adjust, you need to find out how to keep Homelander and Sage—wherever the hell they are—away from them, you need to see Ben. You need to find Ben, now. A-Train is still glaring at you, and your fire isn’t strong enough yet—not here, where the cold is crawling through you once more—so you need a plan. 

You look A-Train up and down, he’s trying to pace in a space where you’re both pressed against the wall to not touch each other, and you’ve got it. 

“You’re leaving.” 

A-Train freezes, frowning at you. “What?” 

“You’re going to go with them. When they leave, you’re going to go with them,” you nod to yourself as you speak. “You’re done with the Seven, you’re going with them.” 

“Are you crazy?! Or stupid?!” A-Train gapes at you. “I have a tracker, they might not even take me, and my family will still be in danger-“ 

“I’ll burn out your tracker, they will take you, and…” You trail, trying to find your way around A-Train’s family. He’s right, Vought knows who they are. They won’t just let him go quietly and bloodlessly, not when he’d be turning to their enemy. But this has to work- 

“If you can’t tell me how my family will be fine, there’s not a chance in hell-“ 

“You’ll die.” 

“What?!” 

“You’re going to die,” you say the words firmly. No room for error, no room for wavering. “They’re going to ‘kill you’,” you make exaggerated air quotes. “And you’re going to ‘die’.” 

A-Train frowns at your hands. “What are those, what are you talking about-“ 

“You’re not really going to die,” you snap. No time. “We’re going to fake your death. They’ll make it look like they killed you and everybody wins.” 

“How does everybody win there?” A-Train’s rolling on the balls of his feet, still glowering at you. “They’ll just twist it, Starlighters are murderers-“ 

“Exactly,” you have an almost maniacal grin on your face. “But the Seven will just have lost its second member in as many weeks. Not a great look for the whole supe supremacy narrative if their best and brightest are dropping like flies. It’s bad for everybody, and that’s why everyone wins.” 

A-Train shakes his head. “What about my family? How do they win?” 

“If you’re dead, if we do this right and Sage doesn’t suspect a thing, then they’ll be honored for your service and left in peace. But we have to do this right.” 

“I don’t-“ 

“A-Train,” you hiss. “This is the something. This is the better, and this is what I’m asking of you. You’re going to leave with them, you’re going to help them. You don’t have to like it, but this is it.” 

“How will I be able to help,” he protests, still pushing and there’s no time. “I mean, if I’m fucking ‘dead’-” 

“You have insider knowledge of the tower. You have insider knowledge of Vought, and Homelander, and Sage. You can help them, you just have to go.” 

“What about you?” 

You blink. “What?” 

“You’re not going to leave? Run away with them into the sunset?” 

You can hear the words A-Train won’t say. You can see them on his face and hear them echo in your head. Leave with Ben. Run away with Ben and be safe and let him care for you until this is just another nightmare. 

“I mean, you can’t just keep-“ 

“I’m going to stay.” You mutter, hating the words on your tongue. They taste bitter and foul, like sour coconut. “I have to stay.” 

“That’s-“ 

“Not up for debate.” You cross your arms, holding A-Train’s glare. “I have to see this through. They’re here for a reason, and once I know what, I can work it into my plan.” 

“You’re still doing a plan?” You don’t love the disbelief in A-Train’s voice. “There’s no fucking way you can keep this up-“ 

“I don’t have to keep it up.” You snap. “I just have to get through it. I’m staying, you’re going, that’s that.” 

A-Train pauses, and you can almost hear his brain trying to find a way to disagree. But you’ve done this well, and he lets out a long, heavy, angry sigh. “What do you need me to do.” 

“Thank you,” you give him a half-smile. “I’m going to find them. I’ll tell Ashley I just need to sit down, because I’m getting cramps or something, and I’ll go find them.” Find Ben. “Find out what they’re doing, why they’re here. I need you to find Ezekiel.” 

“Ezekiel?” A-Train frowns. “I haven’t seen that guy all day-“ 

“He’s here. This is his event, he’s on the program. You’re going to find him, and trick him into walking into them.” 

“Trick him? How am I-“ 

“Tell him they’re here. Tell him they’re looking for new members of the Seven and killing Butcher is a surefire way to get a foot in the door. Tell him Hughie’s here, he hates Hughie. Just get him to fight them. Preferably away from the crowd, but not until Homelander’s speech.” Your fingers are tapping against your arm, making changes to the plan as you speak. “Ezekiel can’t just go alone, he’ll mess up the plan, so you have to make him wait. After you talk to him, say you’re going to find where they are, so you can fight them together, and come find me. I’ll burn out your tracker, you’ll bring Ezekiel to fight them, make it loud, and ‘die’. My team will take care of getting you out, hopefully they’ll kill Ezekiel on the way, and I’ll know what I need to do on my end.” 

“For your plan.” 

“For my plan.” 

A-Train shakes his head. “Are you going to tell me your plan?” 

“No. All you have to do is die.” 

“Fuck.” He takes off his visors, meeting your eyes fully. “You think this will work?” 

No room for error, no room for doubt. “It has to.” 

He nods slowly. “Where am I going to find you?” 

Wherever Ben is. “You might have to look. I’m not sure yet.” 

“You’ll burn out my tracker?” 

“As soon as you find me.” 

“And my family-“ 

“Will be fine.” You give him a close-lipped, tight smile. “Promise. Just find Ezekiel.” 

“Fine.” A-Train put his visors back on. “See you on the other side.” 

He’s gone in a rush of wind, and you’re alone in the porta potty. Just you, the horrible smell of shit, and that thing in your chest. 

Ben. It is him. He’s here, and you can feel him. It’s something you’ll have to retcon later, why you can feel him, what this feeling actually is, but right now Ben is here. And you have to find him. 

You find Ashley first, and tell her you’re throwing up from period cramps in quick, blunt words. 

“Can’t you just hold it?” She begs, and you give her a flat look. 

“Ashley, do you think Sage will be angrier if I rest in the bathroom but do my speech without a hitch, or if I throw up on live TV?”

She shakes her head, running her hands through her hair. “Fuck! First A-Train’s fucking gone, now you-“ 

“He was freaking out about something,” you shrug. “Wouldn’t tell me what, but I think he’s just calming down.” You make a fake retching sound, and Ashley’s face twists. “Can I please-“ 

“Just go!” 

“Thank you!” You make yourself double over slightly, make your words strained. “I’ll be back-“ 

“I don’t fucking care, just be fast!” 

Ashley turns away, and you’re gone. Find Ben. You have to find Ben. This place is massive, and you can’t just push your way through the crowd—not again, not if you want to keep going—but nothing is more important right now than finding Ben. 

Where would you be, you fucking ass. Where would Ben be at the Believe Expo. 

He’d hate all of this. He’d hate the abstinence only sex education—the fuck do they have against a good time—he’d hate the pandering and holier-than-thou attitudes—these pussies aren’t better than me just because they read a goddamn book—and he’d despise all the morality. All the haughty faces and watered-down language and fake smiles. He’d hate all of this, there wouldn’t be a corner of it he’d enjoy, so you have no fucking clue where you’ll find him. 

You can’t just wander and hope you run into him. You don’t have the time to spare just trying to bump into him. But you need to find him. He’s here and you have to see him. Half because of your plan with A-Train, half because you fucking miss him. You miss him so much, and he’s here, and you can’t just not see him. Not touch him. He’s here and you need him and you love him- 

That thing in your chest rolls around. It’s pulling you forward, and you don’t think twice before you let it. And you know. You know where he’d be. You’d find him anywhere, and you know where he’d be. 

Taking a piss. In the VIP bathrooms, because he has no regard or respect for venue restrictions. He’d need to go to the bathroom, and would not care to use the dogshit porta potties—especially not with his sense of smell being so strong—so he’d just walk right into the VIP bathrooms. No one would stop him, because he’s Ben and he looks right everywhere. Even if he’s in disguise, he still walks and talks like there’s not a place in the world he doesn’t belong. 

There are two VIP bathroom trailers. One is near the trailers, and one is across the venue. You should check both, but he’s in the further one. You just know, he’s in the further one. He’d have been staying on the outskirts of the event, and would be in the further one. So you take a long, grounding breath, steal a black Believe Expo Staff hoodie and cap, and move. Trying to run without people noticing, because there’s no time to just walk. He’s there, you know he’s there, so you have to go. 

Of the three bathrooms in the trailer, two are locked. And one is Ben. There’s no way to explain how you know, but one is Ben. It’s the center one, and he’s in there, and you have to wait. 

You can’t wait out in the open. If a staff member sees you they’ll either make you go “back to work” or recognize you and tell Ashley or Sage that you’re here. So you look around, make sure no one’s watching, and rush into the spare, empty bathroom. Lean against the counter and wait. 

Ben. Ben is here. He’s one door down and now you have to just be patient. You’ll see him soon. 

It’s the longest four minutes of your life. You hate this stupid, amazing man, taking impossibly long pisses and making you love him and not just leaving the bathroom. He must not feel you here, not like you can feel him, because he’d be breaking the door down. 

That’s another thing to be confused about later. How this thing works. Right now the trailer is rumbling slightly, because someone just flushed a toilet, and you can just hear a door opening and closing over the noise of the crowd.

Ben. 

You open your door, and there he is. He’s turned away from you, and wearing a baseball cap that covers his hair, but it’s him. You’d be able to recognize him blind and underwater, and that’s Ben. Tall and broad and walking in rough steps with his hands fisted at his side. Away from you. 

“Ben,” you hiss his name, but he doesn’t turn around. “Benjamin.” 

His steps stutter, but he keeps moving. Getting further and further away. 

“Ben!” Your words are still said in a hushed voice, through your teeth, but you’re almost shouting. “I know you can fucking hear me, you cunt.” 

He stops, but still doesn’t turn. Hands curling tighter, knuckles becoming white. 

“Benjamin, if you don’t turn around right fucking now-“ 

You see his body heave from a sigh, hear a low and frustrated sound, and he turns around with a scowl. 

He’s so fucking handsome. His face is tired and angry, half obscured by his hat, but he’s still everything. And when he sees you, glaring at him with all the anger you can muster when he’s right there, his mouth falls open and that strange feeling—his feeling—roars. 

The shock across his features doesn’t even last a second before he’s moving. Sprinting across the grass with no regard for secrecy or not drawing attention. Sprinting to you. He’s here. 

You don’t have time to take a step back before he’s crashing into you, picking you up and slamming the door behind him. He doesn’t kiss you. You’d thought he’d kiss you, but he just raises you off the ground in the most bone-crushing hug you’ve ever experienced. And you can feel him. You can feel the warmth of his body, the care with which he’s touching you—hands roaming you like he’s not sure you’re real and is trying to check—and the strength of him. Really him. Here and touching you and smelling like pine and gunpowder and full of desperation. He’s so tired—you can feel it in your bones—and he’s trying to pull you closer and closer into him, in a way that would be painful if it wasn’t him. If he wasn’t still holding you like you were holy, like you were just a cloud that might dissipate in his hands if he didn’t stop it with firm hands and adoring touches. 

“You’re real,” his voice is soft and hoarse in your ear, and something in you breaks. He sounds exhausted. “You’re fucking real.” 

“Ben-“ 

He kisses you then. Drops one hand below your thighs and hauls you further up his body, swallowing your words. Swallowing you. It’s just you and Ben, and he’s here. He’s real and touching you like he always has and, just for now, you’re safe. You’re safe in his arms, keeping you steadily off the ground, and getting drunk on him. On his hands kneading your skin and cupping your face, on his mouth against yours. Hungry, always hungry, pushing into you brutally. Trying to take all your breath and give you his. Tongue tracing your teeth and pushing down your throat, sucking and biting your lips and groaning into your open mouth. You take it all. Your hands grab at his hair, push his cap to the floor so you can touch him, and lean as far into him as you can without being him. He’s here. He’s here and you love him and he’s everything. You’re letting him consume you, touch you as much as he wants, because you missed him. Because he’s real, and anything he can give you is enough. If he tries to take your heart, reach into your chest and rip it out, you’ll do it for him and feed it to him. If he bites your neck you hope it will, for once, leave a mark. If he gives you any part of him, you’ll dig a hole in your body and keep it there. Anything to feel him forever, anything to never stop feeling this. Feeling Ben. 

When he finally pulls back, it’s only because you can feel the pounding of his heart under your hands. Only because he’s breathing heavily, chest rising and falling in an uneven pattern, and you’re doing the same. You feel a little dizzy, but you want to keep going. You want to touch him until you pass out and he can take him home. Or to Rome, or Hawaii, or fucking Ohio or Texas or California or anywhere where he’s there and you’re together. Where you can feel like this forever, and it’s just you and Ben. Happy. Where he can always set you down this carefully against the counter, and keep his forehead pressed to yours as you both just hold each other. Where you can close your eyes and fall into him and always trust he’ll catch you. 

He mumbles your name, lips brushing yours as he speaks, and you can’t stop the small sound leaving your throat. A strangled noise of Ben. Ben, I love you. I missed you and I love you and I’m sorry. 

You’re crying. You don’t even realize it until you feel his thumb against your cheek, wiping your tears away, and that makes you cry more. 

“Ben,” you���re whispering. You don’t trust your voice to do anything else. “You’re here.” 

“I’m here.” He mutters. “You’re real.” 

You huff a soft, weak laugh. “I’m real.” 

He nods against you, and when you open your eyes he’s still there. Watching you, always watching you. Looking at you so reverently, and that thing is stronger than you’d ever felt it when he’s touching you. He’s wrapping around you, he’s everywhere around you, full of care and affection and something small and bright that’s resting at the base of his throat. His whole body relaxed and washed with relief. You love him. You love him so much. 

“Hi,” you smile at him, and it’s real. It’s sad and you’re still crying, but Ben is here and nothing can stop you from smiling at him. Just for now, just in this moment, you can smile at Ben and get to mean it. “Can you kiss me again?” 

Ben chuckles, and it’s a sound from deep in his body that moves into yours. He does as you ask, and this time he’s gentle. Not pushing for more, just kissing you until you sigh and hum against his mouth. Letting both of you just savor it, sit in the feeling of comfort and each other. 

When Ben pulls back he draws up slightly, studying your face, tracing it under one hand as the other holds you at your waist. “Are you-“ 

“I’m okay.” 

He doesn’t believe you. Ben frowns and his eyes narrow, and you know he doesn’t believe you. He trusts you, you can feel it, but you can also feel that concrete resolve around you both and you know that Ben isn’t going to just drop it. 

“Don’t-“ 

“I’m not lying,” you move your hands up from his chest, resting them on his shoulders. “I’m okay.” 

“I don’t think you’re lying,” he mutters, scanning over your body. “I know you think you’re okay. You always think you’re okay.” 

You blink at him. “What?” 

“You always say you’re okay, and you’re not.” Your eyes meet again, and there’s something painful in Ben’s. You can feel that pain in his body, but when it reaches his eyes it’s somehow worse. It makes him look sad. “You always fucking think you’re fine, and you believe it, but you’re goddamn not.” 

“I-“ 

“Just,” he sighs, squeezing your hips and running a thumb over your cheekbone. “Tell me the truth. Not what you think is the fucking truth, the factual truth. Are you okay?” 

You don’t answer. You try to answer, but words choke in your throat and suddenly you’re crying. Not soft tears like before, full sobs that shake your body and make you fall into Ben’s chest. He catches you, holds you against him until you can breathe again. He lets you wrap your arms around his torso and traces familiar patterns on your skin, resting his chin on your head and humming so fucking terribly. So off-key and out of tune you almost don’t recognize the song. 

When you do, you pull back and frown at him, blinking away your tears. “Rainbow Connection?” 

“Shut up.” 

“When did you-“ 

“Don’t fucking change the topic.“

“Ben,” you move one hand up to rest against his chest, and he holds it. Pulls it up to his mouth and kisses your palm, and your heart flutters through all its sore fatigue. “I’m okay. I’m really okay. I’m exhausted, but I’m okay.” 

“Homelander-“ 

“Hasn’t touched me,” you whisper. “Not like that.” 

Ben doesn’t stop glaring at you. “Swear it.” 

“Promise. No lies.” You smile at him again. “Would be a weird fucking thing to lie about anyway.” 

Ben rolls his eyes. “Shut up.” 

“Make me.” 

You’re wasting time. You have so little time to find out what the Boys are doing here, why they’ve decided being here is worth such a massive risk, but when Ben kisses you again you don’t really care. It’s just him, big and warm and safe. 

Real. 

When he leans back, you’re not crying anymore. You think you’ve just tired yourself out, or that your body knows there will be time to cry later. Right now Ben is here, and that’s all that matters. 

“Are we going to talk about Rainbow Connection?” You smile at him because you can. As long as Ben is here, you’ll always smile at him. “Did you watch the Muppets again?” 

Something flashes under his skin. Sore and hot, embarrassment. That’s his embarrassment. “Shut the fuck up.” 

“You did-“ 

He kisses you again. He won’t stop kissing you, and you’ve never been less annoyed about anything in your life. Today he’s allowed to kiss you to shut you up. Anything that keeps him here longer, anything you can take and hold in the weeks to come. 

Anything that makes you more certain he’s real. That this isn’t a cruel trick of your brain, and any second you’re going to wake up in a cold room that smells like coconut with Homelander across the mattress. 

But he is. Ben is here and real and you can feel it. A dream wouldn’t feel powerful like this, wouldn’t have all the protection of Ben running through your body, wouldn’t have this strange feeling of something pushing from Ben into you when he holds you. 

“You can gloat about it later,” he grunts against you, before standing up to his full height, looking down at you. “We need to fucking go.” 

You sigh. You’d known this was coming, and you’re honestly surprised it took this long. “We’re not going anywhere, Ben.” 

“The goddamn fucking hell we’re not-“ 

“I have to stay here.” Your voice isn’t loud, or firm. It’s soft and shaking and tired, because you’re exhausted. Because every ounce of will and strength in your body is being used for this. For telling Ben you can’t just go, that he has to leave you here and you’re both going to have to find a way to live with that. “You know I have to stay here.” 

“You don’t have to do a single fucking thing but go,” he’s not yelling. His voice is rising and his words are sharp but he’s not yelling. “You’re not safe here, we need to fucking go-“ 

“I can’t.” You reach up, holding his face between your hands and trying not to shatter when he raises his own to keep you there. “I can’t go, not until I see this through.”  

“Yes, you can! You fucking can!” His voice is loud, but Ben’s still not yelling. You’ve heard him yell, and it’s commanding. Ben’s yell demands attention, demands compliance. This is angry and loud but he’s pleading, and it’s worse. He knows you’re not leaving with him, deep down, so Ben is begging you to change your mind. It’s making you hurt, making all your bones and organs shutter and snap, and it’s horrible. All of this is horrible. “All you fucking have to do is go-“ 

“Ben-“ 

“You’re not fucking safe, I’m not going to goddamn leave you-“ 

“You’re not leaving me,” you smile at him, and your heart is starting to fold in on itself. “This isn’t leaving me.” 

“Yes, it fucking is-“ 

“I’m telling you you’re going to have to go without me. Not now,” your words become quick, slightly panicked, because if Ben leaves now you’ll collapse and not get back up. “But when it’s time. When you go, you’re going without me.” 

“I’ll pick you up and fucking carry you out,” he snaps, and you sigh. 

“I’ll scream.” 

“Then I’ll fucking cover your mouth.” 

“I’ll bite your hand.” 

“And I won’t goddamn feel it.” 

“Then I’ll take off your stupid hat and people will see you.” You shake your head, and try to be a little more numb. Try to pretend this isn’t killing you, that you can’t feel it killing him. “I want to come home Ben, I really want to. But I can’t. You know that.” 

“There’s not a fucking chance in hell I’m letting you stay here-“ 

“Ben,” you whisper. “You don’t let me do anything. I’m staying here, but you’re not leaving me.” 

“I fucking am,” he’s furious, you can feel it coursing through you, but it’s like poison. It’s raging and turning every part of Ben against himself, making your heart start to wither for him. For how he’s doing this to himself. “If I fucking go without you, I’ll be fucking failing you again. I’m not fucking failing you again-“ 

“Benjamin-“ 

“I’m not! I’m never failing you again, I’m never leaving you again, I’m never fucking losing you again-“ 

You pull his head down, and he freezes. Ben lets you hold his head against your shoulder, and when you start to run a hand through his hair he falls onto you. Just holds you like you’re going to try and escape, buries his face in your neck like he can climb in you and stay there. 

“I can’t fucking lose you again,” he mumbles your name against your skin, and your heart grows weaker. “I just fucking can’t.” 

“You didn’t lose me.” You say softly. “You didn’t fail me, or leave me, and you’ll never lose me.” Ben. Ben, I love you. “I’ll come back. I’ll always find my way back to you.” 

“You shouldn’t fucking have to,” he pulls back, and his face is so sad. You’ve never seen Ben sad, where his face is just slack and tired and clouded. He’s still angry, but his wrath is made of despair. Low and sunken and almost sick. That thing in him—in you—feels ill. “I can’t fucking stay here with you, I can’t protect you-“ 

“I’m okay,” you lean forwards, and Ben meets you. Heads pressed together, his arms still around your body and your hands still in his hair. “I’m going to be okay.” 

“You’re fucking not-“ 

“I will,” you whisper, and it’s not just Ben you’re trying to convince. “I’ll be okay. You don’t need to protect me from this, Ben. I’m okay.” 

“Please,” he mutters your name, and your heart finally breaks. Pulls itself in two at how low and desperate and hopeless Ben’s voice is. “Please, just come home. Just fucking come home.” 

“I can’t,” you’re crying again, and these tears are slow. Soundlessly falling from you, the only part of yourself that’s allowed to just mourn this. You’re not going home. Ben hasn’t failed you, he could never fail you, you love him and he’d never leave you or fail you or lose you, but you’re not going home. “We both know I can’t.” 

“I don’t fucking know shit-“ 

“I’m aware,” you smile dryly. “But I still can’t come home.” 

“You can,” his protests aren’t loud anymore. He’s just grasping at straws, trying to find one thing that will make you give up and go. “We’ll just fucking walk away, go to Rome-“ 

“Not until this is over. Not until Homelander’s dead.” 

“He will be,” Ben’s hands squeeze on your hips. “The team has a way to kill him, and they can fucking do it themselves-“

Your eyes widen. ���They found a way?” 

“I fucking found a way, they barely did shit-“ 

“Benjamin,” you pull back, and everything is urgent again. “How do you kill Homelander.” 

“V. But-“ 

“V?” 

“Compound fucking V. Puts him down for the count, makes him a damn coma patient.” Ben says your name. “But they can do that themselves, we can go-“ 

“How do you know?” 

“We found a file in his lab-“ 

“His lab?” 

“The fucking Homelander lab, where they used my cum to make him grow-“ 

“That’s fucking disgusting-“ 

“Shut the fuck up, you love my cum-“ 

Now is not the time to let that turn you on. Keep going, no getting sidetracked trading easy, sparring words with him or thinking about his cum. “Ben, are you sure this will work?“

“I’m fucking positive, the lab nerds were real clear that even one shot of V throws off his whole body and turns the pussy into a vegetable.” 

“Won’t you still need to blast him with the special sauce?” 

Ben rolls his eyes. “They can make their own goddamn special sauce. Pump Homelander full of V, find their own fucking way to take him out forever. Drop a nuke on him, I don’t give a fuck. We-”

“That’s why you’re here.” Your brain spins, sorting and matching every piece of this together. “Samaritan’s embrace was a V front, and you’re looking for some.” 

“We’re fucking finding some, and killing Homelander, so you can go-“ 

“You won’t.” You pull Ben face forwards, forcing his words to die in his throat, making him listen. “Ben, you’re not going to find any V here.” 

He frowns, momentarily distracted from lightly tugging at your skin and pleading for you to leave. “What the fuck are you talking about. Butcher said-“ 

“Butcher was wrong,” you shake your head. “I mean, he might have been right last week, maybe even this morning, but if there was V here it’s gone now.” 

“Why-“ 

“Sage said she was dealing with a Homelander mistake last week. She must have been talking about the lab, about how you were able to get in and poke around. And nobody’s seen her or Homelander or Ezekiel all day. Whatever V was left, they’ve gotten rid of it.” 

Ben scowls. “So we can just find more-“ 

“Sage won’t leave more.” You tap your fingers against Ben’s jaw, trying to focus and not think about how he’s stilled himself completely to let you talk yourself through this. “She won’t get rid of it, not all of it, it’s too valuable, but she’ll hide it. Any supplies that might be accessible to anyone that could be hypothetically compromised will be destroyed or relocated. She won’t tell anyone, won’t leave any records. It’ll be as good as gone.” 

Ben hums, and you see his question in the knit of his brows. Well how are we supposed to fucking get our hands on it? 

“I’m not sure,” you mutter, frowning. Scanning Ben’s face like you might find the answer in it, and not stopping when you don’t because you just want to look at him. “I’d bet on Homelander, he and Sage don’t really trust each other, not enough for him to let her just bulldoze any plans or intentions he might have with remaining V. But it’s not a safe bet, Homelander’s never a safe bet.” You feel something tight and bitter in his chest, and sigh. “I’m okay, Ben.” 

He rolls his eyes, still not moving under your hands. I didn’t fucking say shit. 

“Yeah, but you thought it.” 

What are you, a fucking mind reader? 

“With you?” You smile at him, and it’s so easy. Even when you’re talking about killing Homelander, it’s still easy to smile at Ben. “I might as well be.” 

Smartass. 

“Fuck you.” 

He grins. Not in public, Sunshine. 

You stick your tongue out at him. “Shut up. And we’ll just have to ask A-Train when he gets back.” You sigh. “I can’t think of anything else that might work.” 

Your fingers have stilled on Ben’s face—now just playing with the hair of his beard—and he takes it as a sign to speak. “A-Train?” 

“The fast one.” 

“Why the fuck are we waiting for him?” 

“He’s defecting,” you shrug. “He’s leaving with you today, you’re going to have to fake his death by the way-“ 

“Fucking Fast-Man is coming home, but not you?” Ben’s glaring at you, saying your name in a deep, annoyed voice. “I am not fucking trading you-“ 

“You’re not trading me, Benjamin.” You hold his glare. “I’ll come home soon, just not now. And A-Train is going to help you. He helped me.” 

“How the fuck has he helped you?” Ben grumbles. “He hasn’t gotten you out-“ 

“Nobody’s gotten me out, because I’m waiting. I have a plan-“

Ben scoffs, but that strange feeling in him pulses with warmth. “Of course you have a plan.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You always have a damn plan, Sunshine.” He glowers at you. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not have a fucking plan.” 

You narrow your eyes at him. “And how is that a bad thing?” 

“It’s not,” Ben mutters. “But I just fucking wish you would share your plans. With me. Let me goddamn help.” 

All the annoyance in you vaporizes in just how much you love him. How much you love Ben, how no matter what he’s there. He trusts you, he knows you, and he’s there for you all the time. He’ll groan and bitch about everything but he’ll still be there. He’ll try and fight your battles for you, roll his eyes and be a grump when you don’t let him, and stay at your side until you’ve won. He’ll be there to do what you need him to and then hold you like this—with so much rough care—even when he’s pissed. He won’t leave. He’ll never leave, not really. And you love him. 

“It has to play out naturally,” you say, gently. Smiling so that his scowl starts to waver. “If I tell you what to do it might not work as well. I’ll come home soon, you just have to let me do this my way. Please.” 

Ben lets out a long, labored sigh that makes his chest rumble, makes your whole body fall into his. “Fine. Fucking fine.” 

“Thank you.” 

He just grunts, and you pull his face back yours. Kiss him long and soft. Never looking for more, just trying to touch him. Just trying to have him while you can, before A-Train finds you and tells you this has to be over. You don’t ever want this to be over, you only want to kiss Ben like you have all the time in the world. Like every moment in this bathroom isn’t being borrowed and running out fast. 

You almost tell him. Right here, in a Believe Expo bathroom with Ben cupping your jaw and looking down at you with affection as his arm cages you to his chest, you almost say it. Ben. Ben, I love you. You’re going to have to let me stay here, but please know that I love you. Please, please wait for me and don’t hate me because I love you. I’m trying to make myself okay with keeping it together and leaving you to go home alone, but I’m so close to breaking. Please just tell me to damn the consequences, damn the world, and bring me home. Or to Rome, or to the farthest corner of the world, but with you. Please pick me up and take me with you because I love you and I can’t keep this up much longer. I’m okay, I’m really okay, but I’m so close to falling apart. I love you, fuck everything else because I love you and I want to go home. 

You’re crying again. They’re not singular, lonesome and tragic tears or shaking screams and sobs of hollow and empty. They’re small, wet gasps as you try to fight the words down. Try to stop yourself from ruining everything just because you can’t do this. You don’t want to do this. You don’t want Ben to go, and he has to go, but it’s going to be the most painful thing in the world. Even if you know you’ll be home soon. 

He mutters your name, deep and firm, and now you’re crying more. You love him. “What-“ 

You kiss him. You grab his shirt and yank him down and just kiss him. You can’t tell him you love him, not like this. Not when you can’t hold him all night and wake up next to him in the morning. Not now, when you have to stay here. But you’re going to tell him, you recognize that impossible to quell instinct of Ben. Ben, I love you, pushing up your throat and you only know one way to stop it. Ben, kissing him and touching him and turning those words into just sounds. Into moans and whines that he won’t understand. So you just pull Ben into you, and hope he’ll do the rest. 

He does. He’ll always do this for you. His hands will always find a firm, natural hold on your body and his mouth will always fit perfectly against yours. He’ll always fill with hunger and adoration, and give you everything he can until you’re—at least for now—whole again. He’ll always make all that noise, all that loud, angry pain in your head that’s trying to find a why, why is this so unfair that you have to stay here and Ben can’t stay with you, why won’t the world give you one thing, just one thing that you don’t have to rage to keep, and why does time have to keep moving when this day is going that have to end without Ben at your side, and he’ll make it go away. Ben will always make all the sounds and rushing thoughts in your head slow until it’s just him. Just Ben. Ben, I love you. He’ll make the whole world only Ben, rubbing circles on your skin and pulling you impossibly closer, pressing his tongue to your lips in a silent question, and taking everything you give him. 

You want to give him everything. Only opening your mouth for him to move deeper into you—to suck and bite and taste—and leaning into him so your hands are scraping at his neck, so his groans run through your body and down into you, isn’t enough. Making high, needy sounds that Ben swallows isn’t enough, grinding half against his torso and half onto the counter isn’t enough, because it doesn’t tell him. It doesn’t show him that you’ve missed him and you want him and need him and love him. Everything you can’t say, not now, you still need him to feel. He can’t feel you like you feel him, can’t understand without words how important he is to you. He can’t feel your love, not like you can feel that thing in him rumbling somewhere sacred in his chest. Bouncing off his ribcage and hungry and wanting for carnage. Wanting you, desperate for you in a bloody and wrathful way that tells you Ben cares. He might not love you, but he’s missed you. That even if he’s furious he’ll have to go without you, it's still about you. You and Ben together, right now, having each other. 

He has to have all of you. He has to have every part of you that you don’t need to see this through, so he can protect those instead. So he can keep some sort of knowledge that walking away from him—even if it’s temporary, which it is, because nothing is permanent except you and Ben so you will always find a way back to him—is impossible. It’s going to keep you up for many nights, haunt all your dreams until he’s there to hold you like this again. You have to, you can’t see another way out of this that doesn’t end in the world destroyed and Homelander the king of whatever remains, but it’s killing you. Ben needs to understand that this is killing you, that you’ve never wanted or loved anything like you need him. And the only way to show him is to give him all of you. 

“Ben,” you gasp against his mouth, and it drops to leave sloppy kisses down your jaw and neck. Letting you speak but not making it easy. Not when he’s pulling skin gently between his teeth and running his hand up your back. “Please.” 

“Please?” He hums, moving back up to look at you fully. Hands still kneading at your thigh and wrapping around your body. “What-“ 

“Fuck me.” You lean forward, trying to pull him back down. He can’t be away from you, not for a second, not now when he’s going to have to go so soon. “Please, fuck me.” 

His eyes widen, and even as the hunger roars inside him Ben frowns. “Here?” 

You nod desperately. “Please-“ 

“Sunshine,” his hold on you has become like iron, and you can feel the enormity of his want, feel his hardened cock pushing into your thigh, but he’s shaking his head. “I am not fucking you for the first time in a goddamn bathroom.” 

“Ben-“ 

“I said I wanted to take time,” Ben leaned down, holding your gaze. His eyes are darkened, and you can feel him. Everywhere you can feel Ben, in your body and around you and running between your bodies where the boundary of Ben or you doesn’t matter anymore. “And I fucking meant it. I am not fucking you when I can’t take a goddamn week off to do it, when there’s not even a fucking bed.” 

“Please, I just want-“ 

“I know what you want,” he growls your name, and you whine. “And fucking believe me, I want it as well. The only thing I want more than to fuck you stupid is to bring you the hell home. But,” he shakes his head, and presses a kiss to your brow, grunting the words against your skin. “You’re a stubborn fucking brat who doesn’t listen, so I’m not taking you home. And there’s not a fucking chance in hell I’m fucking you for the first time in a bathroom at a fucking Christ Convention.” 

You sigh, falling further into him. He’s right, which is annoying because he’s always so smug about when he’s right, but he’s right. Ben can’t fuck you, not here, not now. You can’t tell him you love him, you can’t go home with him, but you also can’t fucking him at the Christ Convention. 

Ben pulls back, watching you with silent eyes that are trying to dissect you. You love when he watches you like this, like he can see you, and you hope he never stops. You hope when you close your eyes tonight, alone in a cold room, you’ll still have the image of him watching you. 

You offer him a small smile. “How are you enjoying the Christ Convention?” 

“It’s fucking stupid,” he mutters. “Dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. Bunch of high and mighty pussies who think they know everything. Butcher said they do this every year,” he shakes his head like that’s an impossible thought. “Wouldn’t have fucking let that slide in my day.” 

You hum. “I mean, evangelical Christianity was definitely a thing in the 80s. And 70s. And 60s. Mass media just inflates connection and audience.” 

Ben rolls his eyes. “Every year is still goddamn insane. The man has been dead for thousands of goddamn years, there’s nothing fucking new to say.” 

You laugh, burying your head in his shoulder. His arms hold you there, safe and comfortable against him, and it takes a lot out of you not to cry again. To just mumble against his skin, “I see you haven’t killed Butcher yet.” 

“Yet.” He grunts. “Fucking asshole’s on goddamn thin ice. Borrowed time.” 

You smile. “Well, I’m proud of you anyway.” 

His arms tense around you, and that thing glows. Somewhere in that carefully tended and protected part of Ben where it lives, it starts to feel ardent and light. He doesn’t say anything, just pulls you closer, but you feel it. Glowing inside him. 

“Has anything changed,” you don’t move from speaking against him, because Ben will hear you anywhere. “Since I’ve been…” 

You can’t finish that sentence. You can’t say that word. And Ben knows, because he doesn’t make you. “No.” 

“Nothing?” 

“We haven’t exactly been fucking team building and circle jerking, Sunshine,” he drawls, and you still smile. You missed him. “We’ve got goddamn jobs to do.” 

“And you haven’t killed anyone? Even when they’re being idiot pussies?” 

He snorts. “They’ve managed not to deserve it yet.” 

“Deserve it?” 

“They’re listening to you.” 

You lean back, and frown at him. “To me?” 

“When you tell us to trust you,” he grunts. “When you go on TV.” 

Something you hadn’t fully realized was there loosens around your throat. “You’ve seen me? You’ve gotten it?” 

“Of course I’ve fucking seen you,” Ben mutters, and his glare is more indigent than anything else. “Green for me to listen. To make sure I know you’re still fucking you.” 

You smile, and it’s all teeth and a little bit of joy. He’s seen you, and he’s been paying attention, and he understands. “Good.” 

Ben rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to do green, I’ll listen no matter fucking what.” 

“It’s a signal-“ 

“I don’t need a fucking signal to know you’re okay,” he snaps your name. “I can see it on your face. When your little fucking act drops and you look like you. I need to know when you’re not okay. When I have to come get you.” 

“Ben-“ 

“I won’t,” he holds your eyes, voice firm. “I won’t come get you until you say. I’ll go along with your stupid fucking secret plan, but I need a way to know if you need me. If it’s gone to shit and you need me.”

You sigh. He needs this. Ben is doing the impossible thing you’re asking of him and only demanding one thing in return. You couldn’t say no if you wanted to. “Blue.” You squeeze his bicep, and give him another smile. “If I need you, which I won’t,” Ben glares at you, but you keep going. “I’ll wear blue. And you can come get me.” 

You’ll never wear blue again. If Ashley or Sage or Homelander try to put you in blue, you’ll spill food or coffee all over the outfit or just fucking burn it. But—likely even when you go home—you’ll never wear blue again. You’ll never wear blue or smell coconut without throwing up, you won’t drink a milkshake for a long time, and you’ll hate the winter forever. You’ll have to stay where it’s warm, you’ll have to keep Ben with you so he can block chilling winds and hold you against him like this. In a way that makes everything hot, makes your blood rush in a way that’s just you and him together. You’ll do anything to keep Ben with you when this is over. You’ll offer him this comfort that there’s a signal to tell him you need him—even if you’ll always need him, regardless of Homelander or Vought or any plan or mission—and whatever else he asks for so he’ll wait for you and hold you when you return. 

“Blue,” he repeats, nodding slowly. “Swear it.” 

“Promise.” You search his eyes, and try not to cry when you can see just how tired he is. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t-“ 

“Benjamin.” You shake your head, and lean back into him. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.” 

“I haven’t done a fucking thing-“ 

“You’re here.” You whisper. “You’re going to let me do what I need to do, and you’re waiting. That’s all you have to do, but it still fucking sucks, so thank you.” I love you. 

Ben scoffs. “I thought I didn’t let you do anything.” 

You huff a soft, sad laugh. “But I’m going to thank you anyway.” You look back up at him and smile. Wide and bittersweet, but still real. This is still real. “Thank you.” 

He watches you for a second, and that thing in him is glowing again. Glowing and burning. Hungry. 

Then he’s on his knees. Ben’s hands move to hold your thighs, and he falls to his knees between your legs, smirking up at you. Eyes still tired and body still washed in distant pain, but the hunger overtaking all of it. The devotion is spreading over all of him, climbing into you. 

“Ben-“ 

“I am not fucking you here,” he winks up at you, and you don’t think your heart is working anymore. It’s gone into overdrive and it’s going to explode. “But I can still make you feel fucking good.” 

Your eyes widen, and you feel heat rush into your face. You feel heat rush everywhere. “Okay.” 

“Say it,” he grunts, and you know what he wants. You always know what he wants. 

“Please,” you grab his face, running your fingers back into his hair. “Please, Ben.” 

“More.” 

“I want you,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to stay stable otherwise. Not when one of Ben’s hands is drawing closer to your center, hovering right over your underwear. “Ben, I want you, please-“ 

His thumb presses right over your clit, and your words turn into a long moan. “All you fucking have to do is ask, beautiful.” He grins up at you. “Say my name and ask.” 

“Ben-“ 

“Whole thing.” 

“Benjamin, please-“ 

He stands up, crashing his mouth against yours as his hand moves under your panties, teasing you gently. Rubbing his thumb lightly while he slides his fingers between you, but never in. Groaning into your mouth when he feels how wet you’ve become, how much you want him.

“Fucking needy, Sunshine.” He mutters, pulling his hand away, taking your underwear with him and dropping it on the floor. “So fucking needy.” 

You only moan, trying to grind into him enough that he’ll just come back, and he pulls his mouth away, grinning down at you. He looks so handsome, with dark eyes and full lips that were just on you and why can’t he just come back- 

His fingers—the ones that had just been touching you—raise into his mouth, and you almost fall off the counter. Almost jump him when he makes a low, satisfied sound and watches you with a cocky smirk. How you’re wrecked and he’s not even touching you anymore. 

“Please-“ 

He pulls his fingers out his mouth and grabs your face, yanking it up to him. His hand in your hair, your taste is in his mouth, his body so strong and warm and Ben and he’s everything- 

“Fucking good,” he mutters against your lips, and you whimper. “You’re so fucking good.” He says your name, and you think you might just cum from that. The impossibly good sound of your name from Ben’s mouth, in his deep and powerful voice. 

“Ben,” your words are just breath, but you know he understands, because he grunts and his hands that’s moved under your thigh squeezes you. “Please. More, please-“ 

He’s gone again, moving you back down to the counter and returning to his knees. You almost whine again, almost make a desperate sound that was probably supposed to be come back, but then he’s everywhere. His hands hook under your knees, and he tugs you forwards. Right into his mouth. 

He’s done this once. It made you scream his name and see stars, but this is better. He’s learning, you realize, because he’s already doing everything he needs to do to bring you up to the edge. After just one time he’d somehow memorized every single thing that made you melt, and now he’s on a mission. 

He moves one hand to knead and bruise your thigh around him, while using the other to brace against your abdomen, keeping you still as he works. 

His tongue is there first. Licking you once until he brushes your clit, flicking it once, feeling your thighs tighten around him, and chuckling as he does it again. 

“You fucking like that?” He mutters, and you just moan and try to roll your hips against his face. 

He laughs and does it again, lighter this time, so feather like and teasing you until you whine. Until it’s too much and you’re aching before he flattens his tongue against you and hums, running it down, up, down, and into you. Ben pushing his tongue into you, and starts to fuck you with him mouth. 

His teeth are brushing against you when he pushes in, letting out a growl when you clench around him that makes his nose bump your clit. You make a strangled sound and he finds a rhythm. His tongue doesn’t stop moving, twisting and fucking you as he squeezes the skin of your thigh, then rises for just enough to nip at your clit and sooth it with a kiss before dropping back down. 

Ben won’t let you cum. He knows exactly when that line is and he’s taunting you with it, grunting into you as you start to shake above him, as you tug at his hair or moan his name. He goes faster, eating you like he’s been starved until you start to tremble, and then he slows down, running his tongue between your pussy and clit, never fully touching either. Starting it all over the moment your breathing becomes steady. 

“Ben,” you whisper, and he looks up at you with so much devotion and affection it almost makes you fall apart just from him. From how relaxed he looks, between your legs. How his eyes are hungry and lustful and full of light. For you. “Please.” 

He hums against you, and you shiver as the sound runs up your spine. “More?” 

“Please.” 

“You want me?” 

“I need you.” 

He smirks up at you. “You need me, Sunshine? Need me to make you fucking cum?” 

“Yes,” you breathe out as his hand moves from your thigh, tracing circles around you and over you but never pushing in. “Ben, please. I need you, please-“ 

Two broad, rough fingers push into you and your words dissolve into a moan. Ben pumps them once, and once more when you squeeze around him. “Like that? You fucking need me to do that?” 

“Ben-“ 

“So fucking tight,” he mutters, gaze dropping down to watch you clench around him when he moves again. “You’re so fucking tight, beautiful, it’s gonna fucking kill me.” 

You can’t speak anymore, not when he moves in and out again, and again, and again. Setting a brutal, demanding pace that has you unable to think outside of Ben. Rough, strong fingers inside of you that are Ben’s and making you feel so good. 

“No smart words from that pretty fucking mouth?” he hums your name, and you whine. 

“Ben-“ 

“There’s one.” He winks at you, and you melt further into him. Try to use your leg to pull him closer. “Let’s see if we can make you scream it.” 

He drops back down and bites your clit. It’s gentle and light, but Ben bites you and you have to move a hand to cover your mouth so you don’t scream his name. You’re trying to grind onto his face, his fingering still fucking you without relent or relief, and you need him to keep going. To bite you or lick you or do something to bring you over the edge. But his arm is keeping you so torturously still, you can only grip his hair and throw your head back as he goes and goes and goes and you’re full of him. He’s in you and on you, his tongue tracing taunting circles around your clit, and it’s all Ben. 

Then he kisses you. He leaves one, painfully soft kiss against your clit as his fingers still deep inside you, and you’re so close. 

“Ben-“ 

You feel him grin against you, and he crooks his fingers in you against that one spot as he pulls your clit into his mouth. He sucks on it and groans, and that’s it. Everything is Ben, flicking his tongue against you with a growl and scissoring his fingers to give friction inside you, and you have to bite your hand as you cum. As everything grows loose and good, the whole world becomes both so big and wide but it’s still just Ben. It’s still just Ben in all the warmth and pleasure, making you feel like you’re made of stardust and more important than the sun as he keeps going through your orgasm until you’re shaking. Until you’re trying to pull him back up because you need to see him. You need him to kiss you again because you love him, and this is going to be over so soon and you just need to see him. Show Ben that he’s done this, that every part of you is his and nothing else has ever mattered like this matters. 

You almost damn it. He’s pulled you apart and put you back together, still going, and now you have to tell him. Ben has to know, he has to know you love him. It’s so impossibly crucial that Ben understands you love him. You say it, you say Ben, I love you, but he’s done his job too well and all that comes out is a breathless, wanting sound. Every part of your body, of your mind and soul tries to say it as well. Ben. Ben, I love you. Ben, I love you. Please understand, please try and feel how much I love you and tell me you understand. But he's still going, even as your thighs start to crush his head, and all you get is a roar. That thing inside him roars, and moves to fully rest in you. You don’t understand it, you’re not even sure Ben understands it, but it’s sitting in you now just as much as him, and it’s the most natural thing you’ve ever felt. It hums when you repeat the words in your head, when you think Ben. Ben, I love you, and pray he’ll somehow hear it, somehow see it on your face when he’s still between your legs. He doesn’t, but that thing always makes another low, happy sound and that can be enough. Everything is light and high, and this strange thing that lives in Ben but feels like it’s yours can be enough. 

Ben, after what might have been a thousand years, stands up. He’s staring at you—still slightly shaking and flushed, words still a little far away—and the look in his eyes is reverent. His face is covered in you and his beard is wet but he’s not moving to wipe it away. He just kisses you, one last long time, and mutters your name against your lips. 

“You’re perfect,” his voice is low and wanting, and you shutter against him. Feel his hard cock twitch against you. “You’re so fucking perfect.” 

In the grand scheme of things, it’s probably a good thing A-Train finds you when he does. Because if you’d been left alone with Ben for about three more seconds the part of you that’s been begging you to just go, go home with Ben and the rest of the world can figure out how to deal with this themselves, just tell Ben you love him and go, would’ve won. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t be annoyed when the room is rushed with cold air and A-Train slams the door behind him. 

Ben’s faster than you—in all fairness he didn’t just have an earth-shattering orgasm and you’re at a disadvantage—and turns to block your body from view, roaring at A-Train. 

“What the fucking hell-“ 

“Calm down, asshole.” Peaking over Ben’s shoulder you can see that A-Train’s facing the wall, back to you both. “This isn’t something I want to see. I’m just doing my job.” 

“Get fuck out-“ 

You reach around Ben’s head and cover his mouth with a hand, staying behind him as you lean over his body to address A-Train. “Are we ready?” 

A-Train nods. “Ezekiel’s waiting for me, I told him I’d find where your team is then come get him.” 

“Okay,” you sigh, trying to focus on running through your mental checklist when you can still feel Ben, when your legs have wrapped themselves around his torso. “I’ll burn out your tracker, and we’ll get going.”

Ben licks your hand, and it surprises you enough to pull back. 

“Benjamin, what the hell-“ 

“Does anyone want to fucking tell me what’s going on?” He snaps, glaring at you over his shoulder. “Or am I supposed to just goddamn stay in the dark?” 

“I did tell you,” you kick his thigh slightly. “A-Train’s defecting, you’re going to kill him-“ 

“Don’t actually kill me,” A-Train cuts in, still facing away from you. “I’m not doing this if this dick is going to actually kill me.” 

“He’s knows that-“ 

Ben shrugs. “I don’t know shit.” 

You pinch him, shooting him a flat look. You’re being unhelpful. Shut up and get me decent. 

He rolls his eyes, and ducks down to pick your discarded underwear off the floor. You keep speaking as he helps you into them, allowing yourself to sit slightly in the feeling of him touching you, hands running up your legs and arms holding you still. 

“They won’t kill you, A-Train. Ben, promise you won’t kill him.” 

“Whatever.” 

“Benjamin.” 

“Fine, I won’t fucking kill him.” 

You glare at him. “Promise.” 

“I swear I won’t kill him.” He glares at you, drawing back up to his full height. “Happy?” 

You smile at him. “Very.” And it’s not even a lie. “A-Train, you can look.” 

Ben steps to the side—you have to shove him slightly, but he does—and A-Train turns around slowly. 

“My tracker?” 

You nod, pushing off the counter and crossing the bathroom. “This might take a second.” 

Ben follows you, standing behind you silently as you raise your hand over A-Train’s extended arm and close your eyes. This will work, this has to work. Ben’s right here, and he’s warm, and right now you’re not afraid, so this will work. 

It takes a few minutes of slow breathing and focus, but you drag just enough up fire. You can do this. 

You glance at A-Train once. “This might really hurt.” 

“Just do it-“ 

The flame forms in the palm of your hand and your eyes narrow. Concentrating it into something like a needle and pushing it into A-Train’s arm. He flinches, face twisting, but doesn’t pull away as you work. Smoke fills the room, all three of you watching the beam of fire twist and scorch A-Train’s skin, burning it with the tracker. Ben’s shoulder nudges yours and you pause, looking up at him. 

“What?” 

“It’s gone,” he grunts. “I heard it, it’s fried.” 

A-Train frowns. “You sure?”

“Fucking positive.” 

“Then,” A-Train looks back at you. “We’re good?” 

You glance at Ben, who gives you a tight nod. “I guess.” 

A-Train looks between you and Ben again, but rests his arm back at his side. “Is he going to tell your team-“ 

“I’ve got it fucking handled,” Ben snaps. “Pretend to kill you, bring you back. Find another way to get V.” 

“V?” 

Your eyes widen. You’d almost forgotten. “Fuck, wait. A-Train where did you find Ezekiel?” 

“He was backstage,” he shrugs. “Most of that time was spent convincing him, he’s annoying as hell-” He frowns at you, cutting himself off. “Why?” 

“We need some V,” you sigh. “But if he was backstage that means they finished cleaning up. There won’t be any left, not here.” 

“Why do you need V?” A-Train shakes his head. “That shit is horrible for you, it almost fucking killed me-“ 

“It knocks Homelander out. We need it to kill him.” You look at Ben, and find him watching you carefully. “You’re going to need to tell Butcher what I told you. You’re not going to find V any way you might have before.” 

Ben scowls. “Well then how the fuck-“ 

“Homelander,” you swallow down the lump and bile in your throat. “He’s the only bet we have. He had to have kept some-“ 

“He keeps some in his apartment,” A-Train interjects, and you turn to see him frowning at you, hands on his hips. “I saw it, even took some for Hughie. It’s in a box.” 

“I’ve never seen it-“ 

“He might have moved it when you arrived,” A-Train shrugs. “But he has some.” 

You nod, chewing on your tongue, and feel Ben’s arms wrap around you. Pulling you back into his chest.

“You don’t have to fucking get it.” He mutters. “We’ll find another way-“ 

You sigh, and tilt your head back to look up at him. “There’s not always another way, Ben. We have to get through this, not around it.” 

He glares at you. Come home. Just fucking come home. 

I can’t. You stand on your toes, leaning further into him, and give him a gentle smile. You have to go, and I can’t come with you. 

His body tenses around you, and he makes a deep, pained sound from his chest. I fucking hate this. This is fucking stupid and I fucking hate it. 

I know. You squeeze his arm around you and force yourself not to cry. You can’t cry now, because you won’t stop and this will never work. I know you do. But I’ll see you again. Soon. 

Fucking swear it. Swear you’ll come home. 

I promise. 

He nods, and turns you around. Kisses you again, and you know this is the last one for a while. He’s not pushing into you or trying to get more, he’s just trying to memorize you and you’re doing the same to him. You already knew all of Ben—and he knows all of you—but you need to have it leave a mark that you can carry when he goes. You need to still remember in a week, still feel how his muscles move around you like he’s still holding you, have his taste remain on your tongue when he’s not there pushing it into you, smell pine and gunpowder and Ben over the coconut. You’ll certainly have how he sounds—you’ll never lose how Ben sounds because his phantom will stay with you—but you want all of it. You need all of it if you’re going to keep going. 

A-Train coughs, and Ben pulls away with one last, gentle movement. 

“We have to get moving,” when you turn, A-Train isn’t looking at you, but frowning at Ben. “Homelander will be back real soon, for his speech.” 

Homelander’s speech. Your speech. You have to go do your speech. “Okay.” 

You have to force every step as you pull away from Ben’s body. He doesn’t let you go, not fully, allowing you to turn before dropping his head down to yours. 

“Come home.” It’s final. He’s still asking, even when he knows the answer, one final time.

“Soon,” you whisper. “You’re not losing me, Ben. You just have to wait for me.” 

“I’ll always fucking wait for you.” He grunts, and your heart isn’t going to recover from this. Not for a long time. “I’ll wait a million goddamn years, as long as you always fucking come home.” 

“Always.” You mumble, and he nods. “Thank you.” 

“You burn, I burn,” his breath fans against your face, and you can feel that thing in him start to riot. Claw up your lungs—Ben’s lungs—and throat. Furious and loud. 

So you just make a small, sad sound because you’re out of tears and sobs and sighs and smiles. “You burn, I burn.” You look up, and meet his eyes. “Can you do me a favor, Ben?” 

He just grunts, and you know he understands. You’re not asking, you’re cashing one of your last favors in. But it’s not for you. 

“Don’t be a dick to Ryan, please.” 

Ben blinks at you. “What?” 

“Ryan Butcher.” You watch him carefully. “Don’t be an ass to him. He’s just a kid.” 

“I haven’t been a fucking ass-“ 

“Yes, you have.” You trace a hand along his beard, resting it at the base of his neck. “I know you, Ben. You might not be being an ass on purpose, but you’re blaming him for this. He’s just a kid, it’s not his fault. None of this is his fault.” 

“You’re only here-“ 

“Because of Homelander,” you shake your head against his. “Not because you lost me, or failed me. Not because of Ryan or even Butcher. Because of Homelander. So please, just be kind to Ryan. For me.” 

He stands up, and holds you against him for one last moment. “Fine.” He pauses and kisses the top of your head, speaking the last words against you in a way that rolls through your body. “For you.” 

“I’ll see you soon,” you whisper into his chest, your words right over his heart. Right over where you can still feel that thing tearing Ben apart. You hope he’ll carry them until you’re home and can tell that thing to rest. 

Ben nods. “Soon.” 

A-Train’s been waiting, and you’re thankful for how he doesn’t say anything. How he lets Ben and you peel yourselves apart, lets Ben pick up his cap, gives you one last curt nod, and doesn’t comment on how you love Ben, or make you say any more promises. You only have room for two promises now, because they’re the most important ones you’ll ever make. Kill Homelander. Go home. You only have in it you to nod back, and try not to fall to the floor and scream when Ben gives you one last look and a kiss on the crease of your brow. When he walks out the door—like you’d told him to—and you have to watch him go. When A-Train leaves as well, and you trust both of them to do what you need them to, but it still shatters you. You’d had him. He was real and warm and here and you’d had him. There wasn’t a world where you kept him—not today—but this is still the most painful thing you’ve ever done. 

He’s lingering. You’re finding your way back to the stage and Ben’s likely still across the venue, but he’s still in you. That impossible to understand thing is still in you where it had been in Ben, and it’s not fading. It’s setting itself into you, and making you feel Ben even when you pull off your disguise and try to fix your makeup and smooth your hair in a backstage mirror. It’s making it hard to acknowledge that doing that—staying there with him for so long and letting him touch you like you’d needed—wasn’t smart, because this is all you’ll have for a while. At least until you revise your plan, until you figure out a way to get your team the V they need. As much as it hurts, you’re praying that this thing stays with you until you’re back in Ben’s arms. It might be the only way you get through this. 

Ashley finds you minutes later, her hair a mess and a wild, panicked look in her eyes. “Where the fuck did you go?!” 

“I was in the bathroom-“ 

“The bathroom?!” She shakes her head frantically. “For almost a fucking hour?!” 

You shrug, looking around nervously. No Homelander. No Sage. “I can’t control my period-“ 

“You know what?” Ashley raises a hand sharply. “I don’t fucking care. You’re on now, move.” 

Your mouth falls open, and the cold starts to creep back in. “Now? But I’m not until-“ 

“A-Train and Ezekiel are fucking missing, and Sage still hasn’t shown up after being a controlling bitch about this all week, so you’re on now.” You’re frozen in place, and Ashley looks up at you with glare. “Now! Fucking go!”

She almost moves to push you, but flinches back at the last second. Your feet start to carry you forwards, moving mechanically through the steps Ashley had drilled into you this morning. A man mics you, and you can barely feel his anxiety over the cold. It’s getting cold again, and the only thing keeping your legs steady beneath you, keeping you upright, is the way that Ben is still there. How you can feel that odd thing from him ingrained in you even when he’s gone, how it’s him. Everything about it is Ben, and it’s making a home inside of you and keeping your mind from clouding with cold. Fogged up cold. 

The man finishes his job, adjusting the mic a little further from your mouth. A woman checks your hair and makeup, and another points out all your marks and the teleprompter as Deep wraps up with large gestures and over-exaggerated laughs. The first woman smooths down your costume once and gives a thumbs up, the second shoves you forward with a clipboard, and suddenly you’re there. On the stage, walking to a red x and being blinded by stage lights that turn the crowd into murmuring shadows.

Words fall out of your mouth like vomit. You sound robotic. You feel robotic. You’re speaking and your voice isn’t yours, you’re smiling and it’s wrong on your face, and your hands are locked behind your back so your nails can tap and dig into your skin. 

“From when I was young, I’ve loved Homelander. Even when we were children, sharing secret moments in the fields behind my parent’s house, I loved him. I loved him enough to follow him to the city before he knew how I felt, before I knew he loved me. I loved him when he made his first save, and he told me how happy it made him.” Swallow the bile, read the words on the prompter. The boring, mechanical, words about love that aren’t yours. Aren’t about your love. “I loved him when he came to me with roses and told me he loved me, asked me to be his one and only. I loved him when he let me stay on the sidelines, when he was forced into PR relationships to keep me safe. I love him now, as America’s greatest hero and my savior.” Don’t break. “I love Homelander because he completes me. I see us in every great romance in history. He is the thing that gets me up in the morning. He makes me happy, and I want to start a family with him. Lead the best life we can together. I’m excited to lead a great life with Homelander, for our love story-“ 

Your words are cut off by a rush of air and shaking of the stage as Homelander lands at your side. Grinning and waving, placing a hand on your lower back as his voice echoes over the venue. 

“Oh, just pretend you can’t see me!” The crowd grows louder with applause, and he laughs. “I’m here to listen to Anomaly, same as all of you! I just have the best seat!” He pulls you off your mark, closer to the front of the stage. “She’s doing so well, isn’t she?” 

He grins at you as the crowd’s noise begins to drown out your own thoughts, and you make yourself smile back. The nerves are real, but you force the comfort onto your face. Make yourself stay on your feet. There’s no other option but staying on your feet and smiling at Homelander like his hand on your own body doesn’t fill you with dread and agony and cold. Pretend you don’t know what’s coming, that you’re going to finish and Homelander will kiss you and you’ll have to not scream or push him away. You’re sweating and the air is humid from the lingering mist of the morning, but you’re so cold. 

“Alright, let’s settle down!” Homelander dismisses the crowd with a hand, and the last few whoops and claps die off. “Keep going, honey, everyone’s listening.” 

You swallow. No way out. “I’m excited to lead a great life with Homelander, for our love story to be remembered as one from a fairytale. Because he is my prince, my white knight who saved me from the dark. Homelander, you're my soulmate, and I love you. I am deeply in love with you, and there will never be another-“ 

Something bangs in the distance, and the part of Ben that’s still in you begins to pound. Drums. Echoes of drums in your chest that fall into time with a spark of lights and another bang. Gunshots. Those are gunshots and the overhead lights are sparking.

Homelander’s hand tenses on your back. “Keep calm, folks! I’m sure it’s just a truck! I’ll go myself and make sure they get that faulty engine fixed. Please, let my lovely girlfriend finish the speech she’s been working so hard on.” He leans down to hiss in your ear, face turned from the crowd. “Keep going until I get back. Don’t stop fucking talking.” 

He’s gone, and another gunshot fires. Ben. Ben might be in danger, Homelander’s going and Ben is strong but they don’t have the V, and Sage hasn’t been seen all day. The gas- 

Ashley’s gesturing at you off to the side. Keep going. 

You have to keep going. There’s nothing you can do but try and cling to that thing in you—rumbling and bloody—that tells you Ben is still awake. Try and raise your voice over the gunshots that mean he’s still fighting. 

“There will never be another man for me. And that’s why-“ The prompter glitches and sparks out, and a flash of light clears the sky in the distance. Then there’s another gunshot, and a whoosh of air, and you have to keep going. You can still feel Ben, so you have to keep going. There are no words left for you to say, you didn’t memorize the speech and can’t remember where it went after the that’s why line. You have to find your own word. You have to just keep going. 

“That’s why I want to share what it’s like to love him.” You take a heavy breath, and hold onto that piece of Ben in you like it’s a lifeline. “Why he’s everything to me.” 

The venue lights flash again, and the phones start to spark out and fry with the cameras. You’re okay with that. This isn’t for the world to remember or see, this is for you to keep talking and find a way to keep going. 

“He’s good,” you smile into the flickering darkness. “He’s just so good. It’s hard, but he’s still good. His smile is the best one you’ll ever see, and his laugh is the only thing you’ll ever need to hear. If you could see him happy like I do, you’d never want to see anything else. And I, I get to do so many things I’ve always wanted to do with him. I get to talk to him and feel heard and to cook with him and share things I enjoy, and he touches me like I’m the only one he’s ever wanted to touch. Ever needed to touch. Ever needed. I get to feel half as wanted as I want him, and I want him. I want all of him.” You can’t stop. Your heart is breaking and gluing itself together every other second, but you can’t stop. “I want the parts you get to see and the parts that get to be mine. I want to laugh at him and with him and see him smile. See a smile that gets to be mine, and keep watching him try. Try to keep me when everything is horrible, and I want to stay with him, I want to stay with him-“ Your words are becoming choked, and you’re pleading to no one. Begging into a silent crowd of people who don’t understand and a night that doesn’t care. Keep going. “I, I want to watch him be better, never stop trying to be better, just be better and be good. Be good to me, he’s so good to me, even, even when it’s hard and I have to miss him and I-“

The whole word explodes. The drums are still rattling around your head as the night is illuminated from a cloud of fire and ash exploding across the night. You almost run to it, run to him, but people are grabbing you and pulling you off stage. You can’t fight, you're frozen, kept from shattering only by the hum of Ben still carved into you. Like an imprint, like a scar you wouldn’t want to heal if you could because it’s telling you he’s awake.

They lock you away. Someone shoves you into the trailer and you hear the door click, but you don’t bother to even try the handle. You couldn’t move if you wanted, couldn’t run if you tried. You’re cracking. Not breaking—not while that thing of Ben’s still shifts inside you and tells you he’s okay—but cracking. Growing weaker, the fire going dormant once more, because you’d let it get away from you. That speech won’t see the morning, nobody had gotten the part that was just you on footage, but people will talk. Sage will hear, Homelander will hear, and the former will know that you weren’t talking from nothing. She’ll see that hand you’d accidentally shown, that last piece she’d been looking for. The only thing that will save you is the latter believing you were speaking of him. That it’s Homelander you need and want and think is good. You’ve never laughed with Homelander, never seen him be better—only worse—and never, ever missed him, but he’ll still think you were talking about him. 

You miss Ben. You’re sobbing on the floor, cracks appearing in your mask because it’s all too much, and you just miss Ben. You’ll get through this. You can feel that echo of Ben still in your chest even as the noise outside dies down, and you know you’ll get through this, but you’ll miss Ben. More than before, which you didn’t think was possible. You’ll miss him more because he’s waiting, and you know home is closer in time but far in effort. Anything goes wrong and home goes away forever. There’s a way to kill Homelander, a way to get Ben the shot to kill Homelander, but this has to go right. You have to do this clever, however you need to, and with no hesitation, because then you can go home and Ben will be waiting. You’ll kill Homelander, and hold each other until this doesn’t feel like pain anymore. Only another shadow in the corner, another skeleton you bury and grow flowers from. 

Ben will be waiting. You’ll pull yourself up and tape every single piece of your mind together to drag yourself home to Ben, and he’ll pick you up. Ben will wait, and he’ll make this better. 

You’ll love him when you touch him again, and forever after that. You’ll love him when he makes this better and you remind him he’ll never fail you. When you get to stay and you never have to break again. Until then you’ll love him here as well. You’ll keep this piece of Ben in you, and worship in the hopes he feels it. 

You hope he feels your love. Even if he doesn’t love you, you still hope Ben gets to feel your love like you feel his strange thing inside of you. Gets to know it’s yours, for him, and feel how easy and natural it is to love him. How he didn’t fail you, could never fail you, because you love him like this. 

You love him until the night is silent. Until it’s just the dark and spreading warmth. Until your tears are dry and you can just feel you and him. You love Ben like there’s nothing else to love in the world, because there’s not. 

No love is worth this holy and infinite one that you have for Ben. No love is worth rage and desolation like this one is. No one is worth what Ben is. 

And he’ll wait for you. You’ll go back to him. You’ll find a way home. 

You’ll always find your way back to Ben.

——————

Ben couldn’t let himself think about it. Not now, not when he was still fucking clean up the mess he and the team had made. Not when the Pussy Mobile had come to a screeching, rattling halt right before Butcher could park it, and Ben was honestly surprised they’d made it the whole damn drive back. The hunk of shit probably should’ve broken down the moment Butcher had floored it and they’d torn away as Homelander dealt with their diversion. Ezekiel’s body strung up across tents—Ben having pulled him apart with hands and hatred—Annie playing haunted house with all the lights, and a bomb of the French Prick’s going off when Homelander destroyed the guns MM had rigged to keep firing. 

He couldn’t think about how’d almost fucking lost it. How they’d been driving away and Ben had been forced to shove the drums down, try to control them and keep the bomb in his chest from destroying the van and the team when the Thing was roaring at him. When the night had exploded and it had shaken the van, making Ben have to just stare and floor and try not to get lost in how much this fucking hurt. He’d done it, he’d done exactly as She’d asked. A-Train was “dead”—Homelander even the last person to see him before Frenchie’s bomb supposedly blew him to bits, which had been Hughie’s idea and didn’t end up being total fucking shit—and they knew they had to wait for V. They knew that had to wait for Her to get them some or find it somewhere else. Every selfish part of Ben wanted Her to get it, because that meant she’d have to give it them. She’d have to come home to give them the V, and this wouldn’t fucking hurt anymore. 

He’d find a way to get Her to stay this time, and this would never be painful again. He’d kill Homelander and she’d get to smile at him somewhere in Rome forever. He’d hear Her cry about normal, stupid fucking things and she’d tease him and tell him what to do, and he’d just kiss Her until this didn’t fucking hurt anymore. Because he’d done it, he’d done the job, and he’d never hated himself more. 

They were circled up in the dining hall. It was past midnight, but this was a lot more fucking important. They had A-Train, and maybe the fucker could help them. Get Her closer to coming home. Sleep didn’t matter, not when Ben had to fucking bring Her home. 

Ben’s at the head of the table. He can’t sit, can’t rest, he can’t stop fucking moving, not for a second. Not when it will be nothing but fucking pain and images of Her in his head. Fresh, like open wounds that won’t just fucking heal. 

So Ben stood, rigid at the head of the table, his fists curling and uncurling. Butcher at his side—the man’s glare almost as violent as Ben’s—as A-Train’s bouncing knee shook the table. Hughie and Annie had gone to bed with small nods—nobody had stopped them—but MM was frowning at A-Train from his seat across the table, and Kimiko and the French Prick were watching the tight silence with nervous expressions. 

“Are any of you going to talk, or just keep fucking staring at me?” 

Ben’s jaw clenched at the fucking sneer in A-Train’s voice. The fucking annoyance, as if Ben hadn’t just fucking given everything, given the whole fucking world, to save his fast, worthless, pussy ass. She’d told him to, and he had, but it should be Her at the table. In Ben’s arms. Not this fucking piece of shit She’d been so goddamn certain could help. 

He could only say half of that. A-Train needed to understand what had been lost to get him here. He had no fucking right to know more about Her. 

Ben leaned across the table, not bother to hide the fucking fury in his voice. “You’re the one who needs to start fucking talking.” 

“About what?” A-Train snapped. “I’m here, you know why I’m here, what else am I supposed to do?” 

“Make this fucking worth it!” Ben roared Her name. “Said you’d help. Fucking help!” 

“How? How am I supposed to help?” 

Butcher cut in right before Ben could rip A-Train’s head off. “Our mutual friend seemed to be bloody certain you’d have somethin for us. MM here seems to think we can trust you. And I’d fuckin wager you’ve got some real nasty shit on Homelander and Vought.” 

“Yeah, but-“ 

“Man, just listen,” MM muttered. “Those two motherfuckers get off on vengeance, and you’re not doing yourself any favors by poking at them.” 

Butcher scowled at MM, and Ben just keeps fucking pushing. She’d said A-Train could help, and she was never fucking wrong, so the pussy better start fucking helping until Ben started finding more creative ways to figure out what she’d meant. 

Don’t kill A-Train, Ben. Her voice hummed in his head. Or at least do it outside. People eat here. 

“What was she planning,” Ben grunted, trying to speak firm and steady over the pain. “She told me she was planning something. What is it.” 

“Don’t know,” A-Train at least had the brains to look a little fucking guilty. “When we talked she’d never tell me. Said she couldn’t risk it or something.” 

“Well, what did she say?” MM runs his hand over his face. “There has to be something we could use.” 

“Nothing,” A-Train’s answer is way too damn fast, and he’s giving Ben a strange fucking look. “I mean, she was trying to convince me to help, and I agreed, and now I’m here. I can’t fucking help more than that-“ 

“That ain’t fuckin true mate,” Butcher sneers. “You gotta have somethin for us. We didn’t fake your damn death just for you to come here and leech.” 

“I’ve got some stuff on Vought, but you can’t really think they were telling me everything? I mean, Sage didn’t trust me as far as she could thrown me, and she’s not that strong-“ 

“There has to be fucking something!” Ben hissed Her name, leaning down to hold A-Train’s gaze. “She had to have said fucking something, anything, that could get her-“ 

“She wouldn’t share her plan with me!” A-Train was still fucking looking at Ben like that. Like he’d fucking dropped from the sky and was speaking goddamn gibberish. “Like I said, she didn’t tell me anything! I asked, and she said no. She didn’t even fucking tell you!” A-Train gestured at Ben with an exasperated movement. “Why do you think she’d tell me!” 

“A-Train,” MM sighed. “What do you know? That shit about Vought, about Homelander and Sage, about anything.” 

“I mean I fucking know all their old V stashes. I know about security. I know Sage, kind of. How she thinks. I know Ashley, and she’s real close to snapping or losing it or something.” 

“That’s good,” MM glanced up at Butcher. “We can get Mallory here tomorrow. Get all his shit down.” 

“Mate, we can’t be fuckin sure he’s even gonna tell us the truth-“ 

“I will.” A-Train frowned at Butcher. “I’m not here for Vought, fuck those guys. I’m here because I’m trying to be better. Because she,” A-Train shot Ben another strange look as he said Her name for clarification. “She said I could help. I’m not going to lie, there’s too much on the fucking line to lie.” 

“Well,” Butcher snapped. “We might need a little bloody more than Vought security protocols and a fuckin Sage profile. That’s all shit we can get our fuckin selves-“

“I can get you their passwords.” A-Train said, words abrupt and tight. “Hughie’s into all that computer stuff, right? I can write down everything I remember about Vought, about all their passwords, and go over what Sage has told me. I can tell you weaknesses, about Homelander and milk, and the Deep and fish-“ 

“How the fuck will that help-“ 

A-Train cut Ben off with Her name, and everything fucking hurt again. “She thought I could help. This is all I can do, man. She knew that, and she thought it was worth it.” 

“Stop fucking talking about her like that.” Ben hissed. “You don’t know her. You don’t know what she thinks, not about this or any other damn thing.” 

“She told me I could help you. So I’m here.” A-Train didn’t flinch away from Ben’s glare. “Don’t blame me for her idea.” 

Ben was going to kill him. He was going to fucking rip his spine out of his back and break both his knees. The pussy didn’t have any fucking right to pretend to know Her, what she wanted. Ben trusted Her with his goddamn life, and he fucking trusted she knew what she was doing because there was no other option. No world where she never came back to him. She had to fucking come back, come home, but there wasn’t a single fucking way passwords and milk was going to help fucking help them. Help Her. 

Butcher placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder, and he flinched. “The fuck-“ 

“In and out, Gov.” Butcher muttered. “It ain’t gonna help shit to kill A-Train, even if he deserves it.” 

“Shut the fuck up, you pussy-“ 

“Trust me, I want to kill him just as much as you do. But he’s got somethin for us that ain’t totally fuckin useless.” Butcher nodded to MM. “We’ll get Mallory here at the crack of fuckin dawn. We got some work to do.” 

MM nodded, leaning down the table to the French Prick and Kimiko. “Can you two show A-Train a room? Doesn’t fucking matter which one, just get him in a bed.” 

A-Train gave Ben one last weird fucking look before he was led out of the room, leaving Ben with Butcher, MM, and the hum of a fan somewhere. 

Butcher sighed, dropping his hand from Ben’s shoulder back into his pockets. “MM, you better be bloody right about him-“ 

“I am,” MM muttered. “He’s here. He’s not going to fucking leave now, not with his family out there. And we can use his info, get the Kid on a laptop and into their servers. Get an idea of what Sage is doing. But we still need V-“ 

Butcher said Her name, and it ached in Ben’s ears. “Said she’d get us some. Right, Gov?” 

Ben grunted with a nod, and Butcher frowned. 

“She good?” 

Ben shot Butcher a glare. “The fuck is it to you.” 

Butcher shrugged. “She’s doin a lot of shit. Want to make sure she ain’t gonna burn out on us.” 

“She fucking won’t.” Ben snapped. She couldn’t. She’d promised she’d come home. “She’ll be fine.” 

She’ll be fine. Ben had left Her but she was going to be fine. 

You didn’t leave me, Ben. 

Butcher was speaking before Ben could respond to Her voice. “You didn’t fuckin pick her up and carry her back?”

“Fucking obviously.” 

Butcher narrowed his eyes. “After all your fuckin peacocking-“ 

“She told me to trust her,” Ben muttered. “And she’d have fucking kicked my ass if I tried to take her.” Ben shot Butcher a cold look. “I’m not in the business of making my woman do shit she doesn’t goddamn want to.” 

He’d said the words before he could think about them. My woman. She was his. He was supposed to hold her and protect her and care for her and help her and- 

Everything was fucking painful. 

Butcher grunted, nodding. “She’ll get through this, Mate. She’s a clever fuckin lady, she knows what she’s doing.” 

Ben didn’t respond. He already fucking knew that, he knew everything about her. She was fucking perfect and a goddamn threat to Ben’s sanity. 

He didn’t even notice Butcher was gone until MM coughed, and Ben realized it was just them left in the dining hall. 

“What.” 

“You were gone with her for a while,” MM said, watching Ben with a blank, unreadable face. “The fuck were you doing that whole time.” 

“None of your fucking business.” 

“It is if she’s-“ 

“It’s fucking not.” Ben glared at MM with all the fucking pain in his body. “It’s ours. Nobody else's.”

MM hummed, holding Ben’s glower. “Ours.”

“You’ve got a fucking problem with that? You hate me so fucking much you don’t trust me with her? When I’m the only fucking one who’s been fighting for her, doing whatever it fucking takes while you pussies-“ 

“I don’t trust you with her, motherfucker.” MM sneered. “She’s a good woman, and she’s too good for you. She doesn’t need you to fight for her-“ 

“Shut the fuck up.” Ben couldn’t fucking deal with this. Not when everything hurt and he could still see Her when he closed his eyes. “You can hate me for the rest of goddamn time, and tell me I’m evil or say I get off on vengeance, or whatever else makes you sleep at night, but never say shit about what you think she deserves, or needs.” 

“What, you think you speak for her?” MM scoffed. “You think she needs you?” 

Something stabbed deep into the Thing, and Ben had to speak through gritted teeth. “She doesn’t fucking need anyone. She wants me.” His head hurt. Something was pulling at his throat and clouding his eyes and a halo of pain was wrapping around his head. Stinging his tongue when he said Her name. “Doesn’t need you telling her what she wants. Or if I’m fucking good for her. She’s capable of making her own fucking choices.” 

Look at you, defending my honor. My right to choose. Keep this up and you’ll be giving lectures at Feminist panels. 

The pain was becoming blinding. 

“You’re a fucking murderer, Soldier Boy.” MM stood from the table, leering at Ben. “Nothing’s going to change that, change the shit you’ve done.” 

Ben’s jaw was going to break. “I know what I was.” He grunted, a lot of his anger leaking out and being replaced by just this inescapable agony. “You don’t need to fucking tell me. But I’d fucking do it again,” Ben gave MM a cold look. “I’d kill a thousand fucking people and be trapped in Russia for a million goddamn years if it brought her home.” 

“And what about those people's families?” MM hissed. “Their kids, like me?” 

“I’d fucking repent.” Ben sighed. He was so fucking tired. “I’d do it and add another hundred years to my sentence for every single body.” Anything. Anything to bring Her home. 

“What about me,” MM was still frowning, but there was something tragic in his voice. Something Ben couldn’t call weak, because he felt it too, felt it in his pain. “What about what you fucking did to me.” 

Ben said the only thing he could think of. The only thing that he could fucking mean and understand at the same time. “Whatever I fucking need to for you just fucking let her be happy.” 

“With you?”

“With me.” Ben felt something hard in his throat. “Or wherever else she wants. Just goddamn happy.” 

MM sighed, and Ben wished he would just fucking leave. Let Ben deal with this fucking pain alone. “She’ll fucking want it with you.”

Ben blinked at MM, something close to shock sparking through his chest. “What.” 

“She’ll be happy with you. When she gets back. I can’t fucking explain it, I defiantly don’t damn understand it, but she’s real happy with you.” MM shook his head. “She sees something in you I can’t understand, don’t even know where she’s finding it, but she’s smarter than most of us. Smarter than me and Butcher, defiantly fucking smart than you. I can’t explain why, shit’s fucking baffling why, but she’ll be happy with you. Just,” MM gave Ben one last look. It wasn’t cold, wasn’t hateful. Just tired. “Try to earn it.” 

It was like MM had fucking shot him. Shot Ben in the fucking chest and left him to bleed out. He stood in the dining hall, alone and in pain long after MM left, and only managed to move when the fan stuttered off and he couldn’t stand the silence. 

He hadn’t earned Her. Ben could never fucking earn her. He’d held her and lost her, fucking again. He’d spent the whole fucking Christ Convenetion feeling the way the Thing was alight, burning and raging inside of him, trying to pull him around and falling into a beat that was so familiar but Ben still didn’t recognize, or know how to decipher. It had been trying to tell him something, it was always trying to tell him something, but it had been fucking feral. Roaring and howling in a language Ben didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. He’d come closer to geting, when he’d seen her. Touched Her. 

Real. 

Back in his arms and fucking real. Making the Thing start to break bones in his body and turn Ben into just a fucking soldier that could bring Her home. Make her smile while she was against him forever, make those feelings of sheer fucking pleasure and ease run between them when he touched her, tasted her, and just had her. 

He’d fucking had Her. She’d been real, with Ben, and he’d lost her. 

You didn’t lose me, Benjamin. I’ll come home. 

He didn’t fucking care. It was all goddamn semantics, because Ben had failed, again, to be worthy of her. He’d listened to her and done as he’d been told, and still managed to fail Her. She wasn’t home. Ben couldn’t breathe because she wasn’t home. He’d failed to bring Her home, failed to convince her she’d done enough. That everything was worse because she wasn’t at Ben’s side, that everything hurt because he’d fucking failed. She didn’t know what she meant to him. If She knew what she meant to Ben she’d have come home. If he could break the Thing’s stupid fucking code and tell her that vital thing, she’d have understood and come home. 

The Thing pulsed, and Ben knew he was wrong. Collapsing on the couch, he knew he was wrong and she wouldn’t have left. He could’ve offered Her the sun and stars and every fucking song in the world and she’d have still told him she had to see this through.

Why couldn’t he have chosen to feel like this about a woman who would just go? Leave? Just fuck the world and come home for Ben. 

Because that wouldn’t have been Her. The Thing ran into Ben’s head, but it wasn’t speaking. It was pushing against the painful haze, and Ben was finding the words on his own. She’d never give up on the world. She’s too good to give up on the world. And it always has to be Her. Nothing is capable of making you feel this pain like She is.

That might be the worst fucking part of this. Was that, somewhere in this pain of Ben having lost Her. He’d left her and lost her and she still doesn’t understand that Ben can’t breathe without Her there, there was something good. She’d trusted him, to do what she needed him to do. She’d cried against him and known he’d pick her up and make it better. She’d touched him and still meant it, still wanted him even after he’d failed Her. 

She still wanted him. She still wanted Ben. She’d smiled at him and laughed with him and known him like nobody ever had. Like nobody ever would, not like she did. Not like she’d pulled Ben into her and tried to tell him everything he’d needed to hear. Found every way to feed the Thing with soft words and pretty looks, and all at once, grow this pain. She was perfect, and she still wanted Ben, and he’d never fucking earn her. 

That’s what breaks the pain. Snaps it open in two, and Ben with it. She wanted him. She was perfect and she wanted him and Ben hadn’t even told Her how much he missed Her. How he wasn’t sleeping and eating was an act of labor without Her there to throw crumpled napkins at his face and hang around his body while he did the dishes. How she was gone and nothing was good. 

He hadn’t told Her. And she still wanted him. And Ben breaks. 

It starts in his chest. Shaking something there and pushing that lump further up into his mouth. The pain tightens around his throat and brow, his eyes feel fucking weird, and the first sound echoes through the dark, empty apartment. Choked. Tired. All fucking pain and hurt. 

The damn breaks, and Ben’s too goddamn exhausted to fight it. He roars into the darkness, even though he knows nobody can hear. Maybe she will. Across the city and bay, she’ll hear how much Ben fucking misses Her. How nothing is as important as Her. Home. Safe. With Ben and happy. 

When he roars again, it’s strangled and he tastes salt. His eyes hurt, and it’s so fucking hard breathe. There are no drums, no violence in him. Just a fucking ache for Her, and he can’t do anything about it but try and pull it out of his brain. Run his hand over his face and through his hair and pull it back to find it wet.

He’s crying. He’s fucking crying. 

Ben hadn’t fucking cried since he was a child. It had been a hundred fucking years since Ben had cried like a pussy. Weak, pathetic, and useless. 

This didn’t feel useless. For reasons Ben couldn’t fucking understand, the bellows of pain escaping his body and the endless fucking pain finding its way out of his body didn’t feel useless. It felt good. It felt like a tribute, like he was leaving an offering for Her in this loneliness. This was agony and the worst fucking thing in the world and Ben had to fucking break to prove it. She couldn’t break, she wouldn’t allow herself to, so Ben would do it for Her. He’d shatter on the floor of their apartment and cling to any thought of Her as it made this pain grow. It was a lot fucking better than forgetting. 

Nothing would hurt more than forgetting Her. Forgetting her laugh and smile and the way she felt. Forgetting her beautiful face and smart fucking mouth, forgetting the way she spoke and looked at Ben. Like She somehow did think he was worthy. 

So Ben just cried. He knew she’d come home but he still just fucking sobbed on the couch. Alone. Missing Her, and wanting her, and waiting for her. 

He’d fucking wait for Her. He’d cry for Her and be haunted by her until She was home. 

He’d always wait. She’d always come home, so Ben would always fucking wait. 

The Thing would keep him company, twisting and screaming in time with Ben’s tears and choked noises of pain. Remind him of every part of Her. Every part he’d lost. Every part that would come back. 

Ben cried until the sun cracked the sky. 

He’d wait for Her until it burned out the universe.

End Note:  End of chapter check in! How we feeling, squad? We getting through this?

Also, if you haven't yet, check out the first one-shot from the reader event! I'm moving through the rest, and I think I'll upload them between chapters to keep you guys fed. No matter what, thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you soon!

If you like this story, reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

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[babe-in-red]

Gege has had the ending planned since the beginning of the manga, making it unlikely that he is rushing the story. However, there seems to be something off about the recent chapters. From the "mangaka" panels to Takaba and "Geto/Ken," and the sudden reappearance of sorcerers who were previously thought to be dead, everything feels disjointed. This is reminiscent of how dreams operate, with time skips and inconsistent scene transitions.

This is why the recent chapters appear rushed. Dreams typically last only a few minutes, yet the brain can create a narrative that feels like it spans hours, days, or even months within that short time frame.

Yuji's domain was a weird place constructed of his memories and we all know how the past can be projected into the future in our dreams.

Also, have you realized that every time someone died by Suku's hand he took them somewhere? (maybe not always). First, he took Jogo into this white room where Jogo got all the praises he always wanted, the next Gojo was taken to the airport where he could decide what to do with his "strongest" life. if he will choose to continue being the strongest and will suffer loneliness or will he join his friends and finally break the curse.

And Kashimo was even revealed his true face in the panel before he died. He had a nice talk with Sukuna because his whole life he looked up to him.

Then Yuji who wanted to protect everyone. Yuji who should died surrounded by people. Now everyone is alive again. Even those we thought were dead. Strange, isn't it?

[brittlebutch]

the only thing i don't like about 'Alex should have asked for help' AUs/theories is that they all seem to have the base assumption that we actually Know Anything about The Operator, and the fact of the matter is that we simply Don't.

[luveline]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 | 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐨’𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚

the tension between you and miguel rises to an all-time high —a ficlet featuring a grumpy miguel and a flirty, distracted spider-girl. pre across the spider-verse but contains spoilers. fem!reader, 1k

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Miguel has asked you multiple times to leave him alone while he's working. The strike force can't run itself (or so he claims —Margo and Lyla seem plenty capable, in your eyes) and he needs time and solitude to organise the protection of canon events, and—

"Blah, blah, blah," you say, dropping your voice to a soft, teasing melody as you skirt around his frankly audaciously jacked chest. 

"Don't blah, blah, blah me," Miguel says. You'd be intimidated if you weren't so happy to mess with him. "I'm not kidding around." 

Okay, maybe you are intimidated. That just makes messing with him more fun. 

The room he operates from, as you've so fondly monikered The Office, is in organised chaos, and much too dark. You drag a lone chair toward his control panel and set yourself down in front of all his screens and computers. 

"Ooh," you hum, reaching for an unlabelled switch with a purposeful slowness. 

Predictably, Miguel slams his hand over yours, yanking your chair back with an annoyed, "No." 

"Come on, Miguel. What harm could I possibly do?"

"You could–" 

"Topple the multiverse?" you suggest. "I've heard." 

"You could turn off every member of the Society's DMW. That's what that does. Potentially endangering each of their lives by stranding them in unfamiliar dimensions, and preventing them from correcting canon events." 

You feel bad for teasing him when you see the look on his face, anger and exhaustion and the slimmest allowance of defeat. It must be tough to lead the Spider-Society. Tougher to micromanage more than half of its members. 

Pulling your hand from under his, you cross your arms over your stomach and give him an apologetic frown. "Sorry, Miguel."

Evidence of his sweet spot for you lines his expression, softening his sharp jaw and the stoic set of his brow. It's gone as quick as it came, and his mask falls back into place. He turns away from you as though pretending you aren't there and scans one of his holographic screens, his face glowing with a yellow-orange haze. 

Miguel has to tolerate you, because you're a Spider-Girl. Though you've never called yourself that aloud, and you're not sure anyone else has, either, it's an undeniable truth. You were bitten by a radioactive spider that gave you super mutant abilities, though yours aren't as potent as others. You're not especially strong, you probably couldn't stop a bus with your bare hands, but you're smart. You haven't saved the world or anything, but you lost your Uncle Ben. You paid the toll. 

Every spider person has lost someone. Miguel seems to have lost more than that. 

"You know," you mumble, kicking the ground lightly to make your chair spin on its axle, "I've been thinking…" 

"That's never good." 

"Why do we wear our suits here?" you ask, spinning for a second time, the room moving past your eyes in flashes. "It seems performative." 

"Ah, I can answer that. Some of us work when we're here." 

You wrinkle your nose at his deadpan and kick the floor again, spinning so fast it makes you laugh. "What did you say? I can't hear you from your high horse– woah!" 

Miguel grabs the back of your chair, bringing you to a sudden and firm stop. You blink hoping it'll assuage the dizziness between your eyes, and when it doesn't work you keel forward, muttering, "Woah, I'm gonna die." 

"You won't die." 

"How do you know?" you ask. 

"You're under my watch, aren't you?" 

"I knew you liked me," you say. "Oh, I don't feel well." 

"You brought it on yourself." 

You catch your breath. When you feel okay enough to stand you almost trip, and Miguel doesn't bother pretending that he had any intention of stopping you from landing flat on your face. The you before the spider bite would've wiped out. This you giggles and holds Miguel's elbow for a second while you plant your feet. 

"Okay, boss-man," you ask, looking up at the unnaturally high screen he's investigating. "What are we doing today?" 

"I'm supervising a task force operation on Earth-31913. You're going home." 

"Miguel," you say, not sure if you want to flirt with him or piss him off. He looks incredibly pissed off already, so you choose flirtation. "Have I told you how handsome you look this evening?" 

He doesn't react. His hands don't so much as shift where they're akimbo on his hips. 

"You really have the most handsome eyes," you continue, weaving around his arm to stand in front of him. You have to crane your neck to see them. "Sulky. Do I really have to go home? I'd rather stay here with you." 

He looks down his nose at you. "Yeah?" he asks quietly, his voice rough as hewn stone.

"Yeah," you say, taking a small step back. 

"And do what?" 

You mirror his stance, hands on your hips. Your suit isn't form fitting like his, doesn't showcase nearly so much lean muscle, but you like it. You'd chosen a simple black ensemble to match the spider who bit you with a pinky purple heart over your stomach. Miguel had asked about it once, just once, when you'd first met and he had no idea how much of a problem for him you were going to become. 

Why there? 

Why do you think? you'd asked, giving him a sticky-sweet smile. 

Forget I asked. 

He lifts a hand to your chin, pinching it between two deft fingers. You're lucky he isn't wearing his gloves; his claws would pierce your jaw. 

"What do you want to do?" he asks, again so quietly. "If you stay?" 

"I could help with the task force." 

"That's what you want to do?" 

You flush with heat but refuse to let him know how you're feeling. Your heart bumps against your ribs, breath caught in your throat as he tilts your head up, as he leans down. 

"No," he says near your lips, "that's not it." 

"I could help you?" you offer. 

Something flashes in his eyes. You hesitate to call it lust. It reminds you of a cat with a mouse in it’s clutches, only his pupils are blown, black and inky and wide as dimes. 

"You want to help me?" he asks, his lips an inch, half of that from yours. 

You nod minutely. "Yes," you say under your breath. 

His hand moves to your cheek. He leans in closer and closer, until there's a hair's width of air between his mouth and yours, the tips of your noses bent together. His breath fans over your bottom lip and it's hot. You swear you can feel his heart as his chest presses to yours. He lingers there for an endless handful of seconds, silently egging you on.

You call his bluff and refuse to close the distance. 

Miguel pushes you away from him, far from cruel but certainly not sweet. "I have a tower of paperwork you can file," he says. 

"Here I thought you were finally going to bite my head off," you hum. "You're a sore loser, Miguel." 

"And you're my pest," he says, holding your gaze for a half-second too long. He turns away. "Lyla? Arrange the recounts from the last canon event for Spider-Girl's perusal, please." 

"So you've remembered I'm here?" Lyla asks wryly.

You don't mind the paperwork. You sign each one with a winky face and a pink gel pen heart, knowing Miguel will go over them all again, and knowing he'll grow angrier and angrier with each heart.

He'll kiss you and mean it one day. You just have to play the waiting game.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Queue me sprinting to the inbox when I got the notice that your inbox was open! First off, congrats on 5k! Ok now business: can I request something along the lines of Ghost realizing he’s become attached his partner (maybe the reader is the same rank or a sniper or something where they’ve known each other a while) but it’s a situation where it’s a harsh realization. Like it was the one time they didn’t go on a mission together and the reader got hurt real bad (like Ghost only found out because he happened to be on the tarmac when the reader’s body was being carried out of a helicopter by medics) and that’s how he realizes he loves the reader. Because it hits him like a ton of bricks that he might loose them and just breaks down but it ends with him being by the reader’s side and confessing in his own way when they wake up

—Blood Like Obsidian

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 5k Drabble Masterlist ࿐ྂ

╰┈➤ ❝ [Simon can only fight against so many nurses as they shove him back from your operation room.] ❞

He doesn’t recall how he felt the moment he spotted your body being dragged out of that Helo, arm limp over the shoulder of one of the men in your unit. He doesn’t even remember what Soap was talking to him about on the tarmac. 

Because at that instance, the entire world seemed to stop in one horrible moment of mute panic and brown, wide eyes. 

Simon watched for a moment in shock, seeing your limp form as the soldier carrying you screamed out for a medic, moving as fast as he could in the direction of the on-base hospital; jostling you. Soap finally looks over.

“Holy hell,” the Scot breathes, head pulling back. 

Simon’s already sprinting. 

“Give her to me,” he growls to the soldier, who looks up at him in shock as he appears like an apparition. 

“S-sir, I—”

“Fucking hand her over!” Simon orders, eye flashing, his accent already making the aggressive voice even more so as he spits from behind his mask. 

The man immediately presents your unconscious form, blood so saturated into your gear that the black looks like obsidian; shiny like that natural glass formed after lava cools. There’s a damn hole in your chest. 

Taking you up easily, your dead weight makes his chest tighten, a sharp inhale sounding off from Simon before he grits his teeth and holds you tighter.

The Lieutenant grunts and takes off, feet slamming into the ground. He glances down at you in rapid intervals, gazing at your expressionless face for long seconds before it snaps back up to the road ahead—it’s no more than a few seconds before Simon slams his shoulder into a door. 

The barrier hits the far wall and nurses all look up in momentary fear.

“Help her!” He sounds desperate, and his hands dig into you harshly. If you’d been awake, you’d be telling him to let go before you developed marks. The nurses are still paused at the sudden appearance of the monster-ish man in black and gray. Simon barks like a dog, stepping closer. “Fuckin’ hell, are you bastards bloody deaf?!”

The others dash forward and tell him to place you on one of the rolling beds, and he does so without another word; heart so violently beating in his chest that he’s panting, breath loud in his own head.

The nurses are calling to one another, yelling to grab an available doctor and get you into surgery, beginning to wheel you away. Simon jogs along, eyes not leaving your face but ever silent with his hands clenched.

He hadn’t given much thought to how he felt about you—nothing was ever going to come of it. Years of missions and companionship with you. You, the ever-present bit of light that had stayed longer than all others. 

You, the only woman he would ever love.

The realization makes Simon’s legs nearly lock from under him, stumbling for a moment as one nurse peels back your vest and takes a pair of scissors to cut away the fabric over the mess of torn flesh and spitting veins.

You leave droplets of blood behind you, trailing off the limp hand that points to the floor from over the edge of the bed. 

Simon grabs at it and brings the hand to your chest, and he notices his own fingers shaking as he desperately moves his eyes up and down your body. He can’t even look at the wound—large, deadly. You jerk around with every movement as if you're already dead.

The Lieutenant feels his eyes burn with stark betrayal but barely pays attention.

As they’re pushing you into a pair of double doors, Simon remembers he was supposed to be with you during this mission, but had been reassigned last minute. The thought is so sudden he nearly forgets to ask where they’re bringing you. But the man recovers quickly.

“Oi!” He shouts, arms pushing him back from the door. Half of the nurses are telling him he needs to leave. He growls and jerks away from them, eyes flashing dangerously but always darting back to the door as it sways back and forth. 

But he knows why he’s out here—and the Lieutenant certainly doesn’t know how to operate on someone no matter how much he did.

He steps back and the rest of the nurses disappear back into your room. 

Simon puts a hand on the back of his head, gripping tightly at the fabric of his covering as he fears his teeth might break from how hard he’s clenching his jaw—grinding them across one another like a cheese grater. 

He loved you. Oh, God, he loved you. 

And he wasn’t there.

Turning away from the door, Simon paces the hallways until Soap re-joins him, any attempt the Sergeant makes at conversation is immediately slashed down ruthlessly. Simon’s shoulders widen; eyes grow more dead the longer you’re gone from his sight. 

It’s five hours until there’s any word, and when there is, the Lieutenant is alone again—his leg jumping along the floor and his hands held in a single fist under his nose; elbows on knees.

When he’s able to see you—stable but the future still uncertain, he sleeps there. 

Simon sleeps on the floor beside your hospital bed for two days straight, and the nurses are too afraid to tell him he can’t do that. So they don’t tell him at all. 

On day three, the man has only left the room to go to the bathroom; no food, no showers, or new clothes. He’d gone through worse, what was hunger? What was the small uncomfortableness in his chest? Nothing. It was nothing. 

During the day he watches your face, standing or sitting doesn’t matter. The nurses come and go, the doctor too, and he lets them work silently. Simon doesn’t speak to them.

But he does speak to you. 

And on day four, he plays with your fingers with a single hand, taking the flesh and watching it move. Feeling your pulse. 

The Lieutenant grunts. 

“Should’ve been there,” he hisses to himself harshly. “Should ‘ave never let you bloody go alone, yeah? Been by my side for ages.” Simon scoffs, glaring at the bedsheets. “My fuckin’ fault you’re ‘ere. No one can watch your back better, should’ve known that.” He misses the small twitch in your hand, too self-absorbed with his faults. 

Simon was never one for airing his grievances; the man was a master at suffering in the quiet nights. But this was a special case.

Your finger twitches again. 

“...Shouldn’t say stuff like that,” your words slur, and Simon’s head snaps up; heart lurching. He goes silent. 

Your eyes are only half-open, body heavy. You’ll be going back to sleep in mere moments, but you’d been awake long enough to understand what was going on. Simon watches, but his hand slips into yours. Grasping tightly. 

An unknown weight is taken from him at the twitch of a smirk on your lips.

“Care about you too, Big Guy.” 

He won’t tell you he loves you—he’s not that kind of person. He won’t explain the panic or the fear. Terror, really. 

But he’ll slip off his mask and let you see him, his thumb running the length of your knuckles. He’ll sigh and those browns will give way to the rare expressions he shows so few. 

He’ll let his head bend down to rest on your thigh as you fall back to sleep. Simon’s hand still holding yours.

You know.

TAGS:

@luuvbuzz, @emerald-valkyrie, @anna-banana27, @blueoorchid, @cryingnotcrying, @writeforfandoms, @homicidal-slvt, @jade-jax, @frazie99, @elmoees, @littlemisstrouble, @alpineswinter, @phoenixhalliwell, @idocarealot, @lavalleon, @facelessmemories, @h-leigh, @20forty9, @glitter-anon-asks, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @escapefromrealitysm, @i-d-1-0-t, @pparcxysm, @hawkscanendme, @caramlizedtomatos, @waves-against-a-cliff, @sanfransolomitatm, @maelstrom007, @jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet, @pheobees, @glitterypirateduck, @uselsshuman, @fan-of-encouragement, @halfmoth-halfman, @ghostlythunderbird, @I-inkage, @pukbadger, @kopatych11, @0nceinabluem00n, @cocrorapop, @knightofsexyness, @abnormalgeil, @smallseastone, @jacegons, @330bpm-whiplash, @simon-rileys-housewife, @4-atsu, @tiredmetalenthusiast

[mokulule]

Take Out for Dummies - Part 3

Aka Danny has been hired to take out Red Hood, there may or may not have been a misunderstanding.

First | Masterpost

Jason had carefully checked their surrounding for cameras, but they ended up doing as Danny had suggested, sitting back to back each with their own collection of various meats and vegetables on sticks.

Danny groaned and leaned his weight back against Jason. “What is it about food on a stick that makes it so delicious?”

Jason chuckled, “I don’t know.”

It was simple fare, charred just the right amount from the grill and spicy in a way that warmed.

There was a moment of silence.

“You have a very nice voice, you know? Like I get the voice modulation is meant to be scary and all and it makes sense. Just… you have a nice voice.”Jason swallowed. He wasn’t sure why his throat felt so tight all of a sudden.

“Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say.

They finished eating and Danny jumped up with renewed restless energy, still turned away from Jason.

“Tell me when you’re decent.”

Jason snorted as he pulled the helmet back on and it came online. “I’ll show you indecent.”

Danny squeaked. Jason turned around to find him hiding his face in his hands in embarrassment. At least Jason wasn’t the only one with the dirty thoughts.

“Alright-“ Jason peeled one of Danny’s hands away to hold it, “show the way. Are we breaking in?”

“Uh-“ Danny looked from Jason to the hand, his cheeks were dusted a very becoming pink - turnabout really was fair play. Finally he seemed to come back online as he shook his head.

“No, I have a key.”

Jason grabbed the trash bag in his other hand as Danny was still carting around his unicorn.

“Why do you have a key to the ice rink?”

“I do maintenance here sometimes, so I asked to borrow the rink for tonight.”

“Are there anyone in Gotham you don’t know at this point?”

“I’m sure there are plenty still,” Danny answered the rhetorical question as he opened the roof access door. Why that was the door he had a key to was another question entirely. Though they may of course just all use the same key.

They went down a stairwell and out into the cold hall with the frozen rink as centerpiece. Jason eyed Danny’s thin button down shirt, if he’d planned this why hadn’t he brought a jacket?

“There’s skates over there,” Danny pointed to the skate renting counter on the left side of the room. “will you grab me a pair of size seven skates, while I turn on some music and lights?”

Jason did as asked jumping the counter. There was a convenient trash can behind the counter where he could dump the bag.

When he returned to the main hall with skates in hand his eyes widened. When Danny had said turn on the lights he hadn’t expected them to be from those multicolored disco balls, nor for the music to put them back to the 70’s with an upbeat disco track.

“What do you think?” Danny yelled from where he ducked out from an operator room.

“It’s something alright,” Jason yelled back as he sat down on one of the benches and started pulling his boots off. He snorted as he realized something: if this was still an elaborate hit, Danny would be the type to love the double pun of taking out Red Hood by putting him on ice.

Jason didn’t actually think this was a hit. Hadn’t thought so in quite a while. He’d let his guard down.

Danny walked over with that small smile on his face that made Jason wonder if this was just his base state; just happy, enjoying himself, doing his little odd jobs, helping kids out for pebbles because he could, taking Red Hood out on a date.

Jason still didn’t know what to think about that. Like even if he genuinely thought whoever asked him to take out Red Hood meant on a date, there was still that logic break where Danny had decided, yeah sure sounds like a fun time, let’s just corner the former crime lord current vigilante on a rooftop in the middle of the night to ask his date preferences.

Danny was definitely not normal in any sense of the word, but Jason found that he couldn’t help but like that. Some good kind of crazy in this city for once.

“Never been to a skating disco before?” Danny asked when he within easy speaking range.

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well not that there’s really any expectations here since it’s just the two of us, so we can do whatever.” Danny grinned, sat down next Jason and pulled his shoes off. He was in his skates and jumping to his feet in no time at all. He wobbled, and windmilled his arms so as not to fall and Jason had to grab him and steady him.

“Are you sure you have tried this before?”

“I’ll have you know I’m a great skater.” Danny sniffed, brushing Jason off, as he started awkwardly walking towards the rink in his skates.

“Just not at walking in them.”

Danny sent him a bewildered look. “Nobody is good at walking in skates.”

Jason rolled his eyes and tightened and tied off the last lace. He didn’t jump up carelessly like Danny, instead he rose and took careful steps. While it was indeed neither comfortable or normal to walk on the bladed edge of the skates, he did make it seem a great deal more natural than Danny had.

Danny stuck out his tongue at him for that and Jason couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. Join me on the ice and we’ll see who’s laughing.” With that he stepped onto the ice in a languid, confident glide, that immediately made it clear, that Danny did indeed know how to skate.

But Jason was no slouch either. He could skate even if it’s been a while and he never said no to a challenge. It took a moment for Jason to get used to the ice below his feet, but he quickly gained both speed and confidence.

Danny caught his eyes then with a wink, turned, and built up speed in a few quick glides and then he was jumping off the ice, spinning in the air and at what seemed like last moment he landed on just one leg, the other leg stretched out behind him as he leaned forward in something almost like a bow.

Okay so it turns out Danny couldn’t just skate he could skate. As in he could do not just spins but flips - Jason could do flips fine on the ground; he was not quite Dick enough to try it on ice. Of course Danny was also being a little shit about it.

There was something about that smile he was sporting that made Jason just want to reach out and grab him - and do what? He wasn’t sure. But there was an invite to try and catch him in the way he glided around Jason, responding to Jason’s movements by darting away like a fish only to come back, but never close enough to reach.

Jason smiled. Okay, he would bite.

When next Danny passed, he lunged. Danny shot forward with a delighted laugh. Jason wasn’t far behind him, but Danny’s turns were needle point sharp as he lead Jason on a merry chase across the ice. He was slippery as a fucking eel, the way he kept himself just shy of Jason’s fingertips every time he reached for him.

He was doing it on purpose too, Jason realized. He was letting Jason get close only to twist and turn and escape with a laugh and leave Jason to regain the balance he lost by lunging. Jason didn’t immediately pick up the chase this time.

“What’s the matter Hood? Can’t keep up?”Jason huffed. No, he couldn’t. That much was clear at this point. But that didn’t mean the game was over. It only meant Jason had to work smarter not harder. He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and started on a leisured circuit of the rink.

“Did you skate a lot as a kid?”

Danny came into Jason’s field of view, skating backwards effortlessly. There was a slight pout on his face at the interrupted game, but he answered Jason’s question, “Not really.”

“Huh, how did you learn to skate then?” Jason asked surprised.

That wiped away Danny’s pout and Jason felt a twinge of anticipation for what surely boded another fun story, but nothing could have prepared him for what actually came out of Danny’s mouth.

“I was taught by a yeti named Frostbite, he’s like my mentor in everything ice.”

“A yeti?” Jason spluttered.

Danny grinned in a way that showed he knew exactly how outrageous it sounded, but still kept his voice perfectly even when he said, “yes, it’s their national sport.”

Jason laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Uh huh, and where did you meet this yeti?”

“A place called the Far Frozen, not many people have heard of it. They tend to be rather reclusive.”

Danny didn’t falter one moment in his explanation. He either had a selection of stories he told or he was extremely good at improvising. He was also suddenly within reach, guard down as he thought Red Hood had given up on the game.

Jason lunged. Danny’s eyes widened comically as he realized his mistake and tried to backpedal, but it was too late. Jason had him wrapped in his arms. They both went down overbalanced from Danny’s struggle. Jason twisted them so he took the brunt of the fall. Danny didn’t deserve to be caught beneath 225 pounds of vigilante even if he’d been asking for it.

They laid there on the ice catching their breaths.

“Bastard, you caught me.” Danny finally spoke giggling like he couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have-“ Jason stopped, finally noticing how cold Danny was. “You’re freezing!”

“No really it’s fine-“ Danny protested as Jason pulled him back up, but Jason wouldn’t have it.

“Who forgets to wear a jacket when going skating,” Jason grumbled pulling his jacket off and wrapping it around Danny shoulders. It looked comically large hanging off Danny’s small frame, but Jason only gave himself a small moment to appreciate it before drawing Danny close again.

It took a moment but then Danny relaxed into the hold.

“How’s this? Better?” Jason asked after a while.

Danny looked up his eyes wide and blue and maybe a little overwhelmed. “Y-yeah.”

Jason frowned looking around to locate the bench where their shoes were. “We should probably get out of this cold.”

“No,” Danny said immediately pressing close, then flinched, before saying quietly, “can we just stay like this for a bit?”

Jason blinked in confusion. It didn’t make sense to stay in the cold, but he found himself agreeing quietly.

The music at this point had turned to quieter songs. Jason was starting to feel the cold himself by staying still, and he started to sway to the music, moving just a little across the ice. Danny looked up. He wiggled around and it took only a moment for him to actually find the sleeves and push his arms through. Jason let go to let him and soon found his hands captured in still cold but no longer freezing hands.

“Dance with me?” Danny asked.

Jason couldn’t say no to that, but “I’ve never danced on ice before.”

Danny grinned and glided back in close, getting them positioned for a waltz. “It doesn’t have to be right, but you lead and I’ll follow and make sure we don’t fall on our asses.”

Jason scoffed as he lead them into a glide that had Danny moving along mostly backwards on the ice.

“You don’t trust me to follow.”

“No,” Danny grinned, “But I do trust you to catch me.”

Jason rolled his eyes fondly behind the helmet. Then dipped Danny suddenly to make him prove it. There wasn’t a hint of struggle, he stayed relaxed in his hold as if they’d danced together like this a million times. Jason didn’t know what to do with that, and pulled him back up.

Jason didn’t know how long they danced. Danny had started talking quietly after a while admitting he hadn’t gone on a date since he went to high school, and got Jason to admit he liked reading. but he did know his feet were starting to hurt. Still he was reluctant for it to be over.

It was only when Danny failed in hiding a yawn they left the rink.

-

Jason rolled the bike to a smooth stop putting one foot down to keep balance. He let go of the handlebars and straightened up to allow Danny to get off.

However instead of getting off Danny took off the helmet, hung it on a handlebar and twisted around bringing his legs up until he faced Jason and could wrap them lightly around Jason’s waist. Jason’s mind went blank at the way it brought them closer, the only thing keeping the position somewhat decent for the public was the unicorn now squished between them. If Jason now wished he’d never won the thing, that was a secret he was taking to his second grave.

“So,” Danny said conversationally, wrapping his arms loosely around Jason’s neck, leaning his forearms on his shoulders almost thoughtfully, “I had fun.” He smiled. “I hope you also had fun, that was the whole purpose after all.”

He paused - maybe waiting for a response, but Jason didn’t even know what to say. He certainly wasn’t going to admit he had fun. That was- Red Hood wouldn’t do that. He’d already behaved way too much like himself tonight.

There was a momentary frown on Danny’s face before it smoothed out replaced by a soft smile, that Jason had no idea what to do with. “This is the point where a successful date is usually rewarded with a kiss - you can say no?”

Jason stiffened.

Surely he wasn’t going to?!

Danny leaned in, his smile turned wicked for a moment as his hands splayed out on either side of the helmet. Jason needed to stop him, but instead his traitorous hands landed on Danny’s waist.

He needed to push him away; he didn’t.

Danny’s hands tightened on the helmet, pulling-

Except he didn’t pull the helmet off, he just pulled Jason closer and tilted his head backwards and then pressed his lips to the helmet, right were his mouth would have been. It was chaste, but not just a quick peck. No, it was a slow and languid press in a way that made Jason all too aware that there was little more than an inch between their lips, but it might as well have been miles for the barrier between them. Slow in a way that made Jason’s breath catch in his throat and his treacherous brain wish Danny had removed the fucking helmet.

Danny drew back, his blue eyes practically sparkling in mischief and he lightly bonked his forehead against the helmet before twisting around again and jumping off, Jason letting him reluctantly.

“See you around, Hood.” Danny waved once before he started walking down the road, unicorn plushie under one arm, utterly unafraid to walk the most crime ridden streets of Gotham in the early hours of the morning. Presumably he was going home to his mystery residence.

Jason should follow him. It was the perfect time to find out more about the mystery that was Odd-Job Danny. It was why he’d agreed to the date in the first place. Right?

Instead his brain was going around in circles, wondering if he had pulled up his helmet when Danny first mentioned the kiss, not pulled it off of course, just up to his nose or so, would Danny have gone through with it? Would he have actually kissed him? Or did he only do it because he knew the helmet was there in between them?

Did Jason want him to kiss him?

Fuck. He did.

Danny was gone now, nowhere to be seen. Whatever chance he’d had of figuring out more was gone. And yet that seemed the least of Jason’s problems.

-

So that's the end of the date, though of course not the end of the story. Consider commenting or writing something in the tags if you liked it, things irl are gonna be very busy for the next year so I could use all the motivation for writing I can scrape together. You can subscribe at the masterpost for future updates. Next

[lurkinginnernarrator]

“Shen Qingqiu! What is this nonsense about Qing Jing requisitioning a disguise for one of its members?! You would dare send one of your little disciples trussed up like a pretty young mistress! Even I thought you better than”–

Qi Qingqi’s voice cut off on an extremely strangled note. She and the other Peak Lords all seemed unable to capture an ounce of oxygen.

Cang Qiong’s finest were gathered in a elegant war room, massive tables shoved to the side, covered with maps and intelligence reports: A mind-numbing amount of information scattered across sheaves of paper and neatly written on large boards; they spanned the walls not open to the serene nature of Qing Jing’s outdoors.

The murmuring of focused and purposeful Qing Jing disciples hushed at Qi Qingqi’s outraged exclamation and the sudden appearance of a majority of their shibo.

In the midst of the room, Shen Qingqiu stood, hands frozen in the action of sheathing a dagger to his inner thigh. While normally, such a sight would be arresting enough, it paled in comparison to the vision Qing Jing’s Lord made currently.

His eyes caught wide and surprised were rimmed with coal and rouge, claret lips parted infinitesimally. Gentle strands of hair framed his face and cascaded down his curved back. Hair ornaments tinkled and glittered in the silken black waves.

Delicate, airy robes flirted with graceful wrists, red lacquered nails making a pleasing contrast. Carmine and the tones of blushing rose danced about Shen Qingqiu, gentle fabric draping from his shapely frame; soft skin of his collarbones an–and the rounded mound of his, hi-his bust? Exposed. As was the refined line of sinewy thigh.

S-sshink!

Shen Qingqiu’s hand leaves the handle of the blade, nebulous skirts falling back into place, his pale thighs veiled from sight once more.

“Qi-shimei, Liu-shidi, Zhangmen-shixiong?”– Shen Qingqiu's eyes quickly take in the numerous uninvited visitors, yet his lilting voice doesn’t quicken from its whiplike cadence –”To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from Yue-shixiong and my shidimen?”

For some unknowable reason, Sect Master Yue and the Bai Zhan War God forsook courtesy for silence.

“Rather, to what does this Master owe my beloved sect siblings appearance,” the polished voice drawled, “ whose purpose is no doubt to meddle in the affairs of a Qing Jing operation? Without, may I add, any proper knowledge of the purpose of this operation to begin with?”

Mu Qingfang, who to this point was standing unobtrusively to the side, stepped forward, courteously greeting the Maste– Lady? Of Qing Jing.

His fellow peak lords prayed blessings, to be gifted such a level headed martial brother!

“These shidi apologize for the discourtesy, Shen-shixiong.” Mu Qingfang’s voice may have hesitated, or stuttered, and almost uttered ‘shijie’ but no one noticed because they were too caught up in their own lawless thoughts.

A Qing Jing disciple helpfully handed Shen Qinqqiu a fan. With a crack! It met his open palm, a gavel descrying doom.

Haloed in light, the Qing Jing Master stood like a wrathful goddess, a holy judge tired of the sullying presence of mortals.

Qing Jing’s Master, when garbed in his usual attire, was a sharp, intimidating figure. Graceful in his execution of masculinity, not unlike a dagger. Moreso, then, donning the mantle of femininity. Some intangible attributes changed, that when masculine, repelled, yet when feminine compelled. Those certain peak lords were unprepared to handle such a thing.

Shen Qingqiu tsked, turning his back he subsequently ignored them after hand-waving a disciple into acting as the hospitality.

The wrong-footed peak lords were bundled off to the side and laden with tea and light victuals, being appeased into silence and unobtrusiveness by snacks. If some of the scholarly disciples secretly thought of it as the kiddie table, that's for them to know, isn’t it?

[jjkamochoso]

Obviously Oblivious

Fluff

Soshiro Hoshina x gn!reader

Request from Wattpad: "Reader and Hoshina are being so oblivious that they both like each other to the point where this absolutely annoys Mina and Okonogi because they are ITCHING to see both of them together."

Warnings: none

Another mission done, another celebration was happening at Third Division’s base. Though her subordinates were known for their high success rate, Captain Ashiro was pleasantly surprised by just how smoothly the last kaiju disposal went, opting to treat her soldiers with a special catered feast. Thanks to Izumo’s family connections, the chef served sizzling plates of A6 beef and endless amounts of accoutrements for the standard price, making Mina’s soldiers happy and the military budget even happier. Mina captured a piece of meat between her chopsticks, quietly observing the rowdy group in front of her. Konomi Okonogi sat to her right, a steaming bowl of soup fogging up her glasses. Mina stifled a giggle as she watched the girl wipe her lenses with her sleeve, heavily squinting. Satisfied with her work, Okonogi placed the glasses back on her face and blinked a few times, looking around the room. All of a sudden, her eyes went wide.

“You alright?” Mina asked her, noticing her change in expression.

Okonogi nodded, sputtering slightly. “Huh? O-oh, yeah, I’m fine.”

Mina wasn’t convinced, raising her eyebrows at the bespectacled woman expectantly.

“Well, I…” she hesitated before finishing her thought. “Hoshina and L/n are sitting awfully close together.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes!” Okonogi exclaimed, Mina surprised by her outburst. Her face turned beet red as she hurriedly explained herself.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Captain! It’s just that their behavior together is strange. Quite frankly, they’ve been getting on my nerves.”

The operations leader took a sip of her drink and Mina’s curiosity was piqued. Having had her own thoughts surrounding the actions of a certain vice captain and officer, Mina was wondering if she finally found someone she could vent her frustrations to.

“They seem to like each other,” she mused, treading lightly in case she misread the situation.

“Like each other?! Total understatement. Those two are hopelessly in love but won’t do a thing about it!” Okonogi complained, irritated.

“I thought I was the only one that noticed!” Mina replied, excited that the woman beside her was the perfect confidant she’d been yearning for. “They drive me crazy with their cluelessness!”

“Exactly! I don’t know how they don’t see their feelings for each other! I mean, they’re blinder than I am without my glasses! It’s ridiculous!”

“I don’t usually condone relationships in the workplace but those two really are perfect for each other,” said Mina, eyeing you and Soshiro as you giggled over something he had whispered to you. It made Mina’s heart soar in her chest seeing people experience happiness in these moments, when the death and destruction you all faced almost every day could be forgotten for a short time.

“Oh my god, Captain.” Okonogi tugged at Mina’s sleeve. “I think Soshiro’s gonna put his arm around y/n’s shoulder!”

“No way,” Mina breathed out, anxiously watching as Soshiro scooted closer to you, if that were even possible. He looked fidgety.

Probably nervous, Mina thought, staring down the lovebirds. Soshiro was ready to make his move. He brought his hand over his mouth—

He wasn’t going to do that. Was he?

“OH MY GOD!” Mina practically yelled as Soshiro faked a yawn, stretching his muscular arm behind you and resting it comfortably on your chair. The room went silent almost immediately, soldiers turning to see what was going on with their captain.

“That food was really hot,” Mina lied, trying to hide her embarrassment behind a napkin. “I’m fine. Everyone, back to what you were doing.”

In an instant it was like nothing happened, rambunctious chatter filling the space once more. You and Soshiro weren’t phased either, easing back into what Mina figured was your previous conversation. Soshiro’s arm was still around you and Mina was relieved that she didn’t jeopardize this huge stride in your non-relationship.

“What a classic move,” Okonogi said, resting her chin in her palm. “If that wasn’t enough to make them realize their feelings, I don’t know what will.”

“Don’t underestimate their ability to be emotionally unaware,” warned Mina, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if y/n read that as a friendly gesture. They’re both oblivious to romance.”

“They’ve made that quite clear,” griped Okonogi, observing you holding up a spoon to Soshiro’s lips as he took a bite of whatever you offered him. You were laughing with each other again and Okonogi was confused at how any of that behavior could be so deeply misconstrued as anything other than flirtatious.

“Should we do something about this? I don’t know how much more I can take,” Okonogi said.

“I worry it may be unprofessional to get involved, however helpful our interference might be,” replied Mina.

Okonogi sighed. “You’re right. Besides, it is pretty fun to watch this play out. It’s like a soap opera.”

Later that night, Mina and Okonogi were about to say goodbye to one another after making sure no soldier was left passed out at the dining tables. With dinner cleaned up and everybody walking or stumbling back to their rooms, they closed the door and made their way down the abandoned hallway.

Actually, they made their way down what they thought to be an abandoned hallway.

The two women shared a knowing look when they heard stifled giggles echoing from around the corner.

“You’re always so funny, Soshiro,” your voice rang out, and Mina and Okonogi could only imagine the sickly sweet smile you were giving the man.

“Gotta stay on top of my game to keep ya around,” he teased, and they could only image the lovesick grin he was sending your way.

“It’s getting late. I should get going,” you told him.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll see ya tomorrow?”

Mina and Okonogi didn’t miss the hopeful lilt coating his voice.

“Of course,” you had replied. “I’d miss you too much if I didn’t see you.”

It took everything within themselves to not slam their heads against the wall. How were you two so… so…

Dumb?!

“That’s it. I’ve heard enough,” Okonogi said, marching down the corridor. Mina had no idea what was about to happen, she just knew she couldn’t miss it. She hurried behind Okonogi, rounding the corner at the perfect time.

“Both of you! You’re driving me insane! Kiss already, dammit!” Okonogi demanded, startling you and Soshiro. She left as quick as she came in, leaving Mina dumbfounded.

“Have a good night,” she told you, hands awkwardly clasped behind her back as she nodded before hurrying away. Recovering from the unexpected chewing out, you glanced at Soshiro, a mischievous gleam in your eye.

“Okonogi’s never given us a bad command, has she?” you asked, hoping he understood what you were getting at.

“Our impeccable Operations Leader has never led us astray, you’re correct,” he responded, his fangs glinting in the dim light. His hands found purchase on your hips while yours rested on the back of his neck, the distance slowly lessening between your bodies. As your lips began to touch his, you realized you owed Okonogi big time for her help.

[nackrosor]

~Warm, Soft and Alive~

Captain John Price x sergeant fem!reader

8,5 k. - Your captain comes knocking at your door in the middle of the night after the umpteenth nightmare of you dying in his arms jolts him awake.

warnings: porn with plot & feelings, light angst, emotional hurt/comfort, soft dom, light power dynamics, praise kink, sleepy sex, multiple orgasms, mildly dubcon (just because you're very eepy), dry humping (except it's very wet), first time together, underlying romantic fluff, I'm not sure if this can be counted as somno but just in case I'm mentioning it.

John has seen many people die. He has witnessed a great deal of bloodshed, both among enemy's and friendly' line. He had his own soldiers fall on missions, fine men and women giving their own lives in order to save others. Some even took their last breaths in his arms. He remembers each one of them.

Everything was heightened during the early years. Every death devastated him, causing him nightmares and awful flashbacks... But as the years went by, his skin thickened and his mind grew used to the atrocities. Nothing could get through to him anymore.

Or so he thought.

He can't seem to shake off the image of you bloody and unconscious, laying in his arms as he puts pressure on the gnashing wound on your side, trying to reduce the blood loss. He can't forget the anguish he felt while looking at you in such a miserable state. How on edge he was on the frantic ride back to camp, with you falling in and back from consciousness the whole time. Those weak groans and cries of pain that left your lips still echo in his ears. He can't forget how lost he felt as the medics took your limp body from his arms and rushed to the operating room to get you under the knife. To save your life. You had lost so much blood on the way... There was a high possibility that you wouldn't... That you... He wouldn't have been able to forgive himself if you did. Thankfully, you’ve always been so strong. One of his best soldiers. You perdured. You lived. You healed. Still, he can't forget a second of it all. The sight of your limp battered body sagged against him haunts his dreams to this day. Months after the event. No matter how many times he sees you strolling about the HQ, chatting with your mates, smiling and nodding at him as you pass by. Every night he has the same nightmare of you dying in his arms, and his mind is pestered by fear and doubts. What if he truly lost you? What if you didn’t make it?

Another nightmare has woken him tonight, robbing him of sleep. And at this point, he knows there will be no peace for him until he sees you breathing and standing on your feet with his own two eyes. He can't wait for the morning, for you to wake up. He needs to see you right now, lest he loses his mind entirely. 

That's why he's marching to your quarters through the dark hallways of the HQ. Pace hurried, heart aching in his chest, head still whirling from the dreadful images of your life slipping away from those pretty eyes of yours. He can't take it one second longer. His fist hits the metal surface of your door a bit harder than he intended to, but he needs you to hear him and come open the door as quickly as possible. 

You jolt awake at the sudden knock on your door. Your heavy eyes flicker to the alarm clock on the nightstand, a groan leaving your lips upon noticing the green light signaling 2:40 am.

With much effort, you turn on the lamp then drag your feet off the bed and towards the entrance, groggily swaying the door open.

"Who the fuck-" You're ready to protest and tell off whoever dares to interrupt your sleep, but the words die on your tongue when your half-closed eyes land on your captain.

One glance at your half-asleep, messy look and all the tension washes off of his body like soothing water. 

“Can I come in?” John’s voice sounds shaky, the relief of seeing you battling with the effects of the nightmare still lingering in his mind.

"Uhhh-" you look up at him, momentarily taken aback by his request, your mind still clouded by sleep. Why is your captain at your door, at such a late hour, asking to come inside your room? Perhaps you're still lost in your dreamworld. 

With a sluggish shrug, you eventually move aside and let him step inside. 

John shuts the door behind him, quietly. It is darker inside your room than out, but he can make you out in the darkness thanks to the faint yellow light coming from the abajour on your nightstand. 

His eyes trail down your body, checking you over as discreetly as possible for any signs of injury; a habit he’s taken on since that day. There’s an urge to grab your arms and hold you still so he can run his hands over you, check that you’re real and solid in front of him.

You don't notice his scrutinizing gaze as you rub your hands over your face, trying to wipe the sleepiness out of your features.

"Hm, cap?" you call out for him, your voice raspy and drowsy. One of your hands lazily tug at your thin top, adjusting the straps on your shoulders. "What happened?"

The way you pull at your clothes has John quickly sweep his gaze over the exposed skin. He’s seen you in a similar attire countless times before, but for some reason tonight this sight of you has his stomach flipping.

“Nothin’ happened. I just-“ he breaks off. John can’t admit that he’s here because he woke up from yet another nightmare of you bloody and broken, dying in his arms.

“I needed to see you.”

The words take a moment to register in your hazy mind, and when they do, you blink at him in confusion.

"Hm. Me... ? Why?" you ask him hesitantly, a slight frown taking form on your face. You shift awkwardly on your feet, your head tilting to the side as you look up at him with your doe eyes. Your fingers scratch mindlessly at an old scar on your bicep.

His eyes flicker to your arm. The sigh has his heart twisting in his chest. He knows all of your scars, old and new. And he remembers that one clearly, even more than the others. Perhaps because he wasn’t the one to patch you up that time.

John takes a step forward, closing the space between you two. It’s suddenly stifling in your room, and he’s hyper aware of how thin your top is and how much he wants to touch you. 

Your head cranes upward as he steps closer, your eyes unwavering from his face.

"...Cap?" you whisper softly, your frown deepening at his silence. You hold onto your arm with undisguised unease, warming up your bare skin with your palm.

John reaches to brush some of your messy hair away from your face. Your skin is warm beneath his palm, soothing the coldness in his chest. All those moments of seeing your lifeless body flicker in and out of his mind, and here you are. Warm and soft and very much alive.

He can’t stop himself. John brings his other hand up to lightly touch your shoulder, his fingers tracing the slope of your bare collarbone.

Your flinch of surprise to his touch is delayed, your tired eyes widening imperceptibly as they dart to his hand on your collarbone before moving back to his face.

You're not sure what's happening. Sleep still lingers in your mind, muffling your thoughts, slowing your instincts.

"John...?"

The way you say his name, all soft and quiet and surprised, has his heart giving a thump against his chest. John is aware he’s being too forward. He’s your Captain, he shouldn’t be here, this close to you. Touching your bare skin, in your room. It’s not right, it’s not proper. But after waking from those nightmares for the umpteenth time, all he wants to do is touch you. Reassure himself that you’re safe, that you’re real and here standing in front of him.

John can’t look away. In the low light of your room, your eyes still manage to stand out, full of life even when clouded by fatigue. His fingers trail from your collarbone to your jaw, the rough pad of his thumb brushing along the underside of your chin. The contact has you shivering and your eyelids fluttering. You lean into his touch on instinct, heart stuttering in your chest.

He’s suddenly reminded of many a night spent together on a cold ground, of times when you’d curl up beside him and he wrapped his arm around you and kept you warm and safe and alive. He doesn't know if you remember, if you've ever noticed, but he does remember. He craves that feeling again. 

John lets his touch wander down the side of your neck, feeling the quick beat of your pulse. Alive. Alive. Alive.

"What's the matter…?" you whisper drowsily, heavy eyes locking onto his again, your hand reaching up to wrap around his wrist.

He can see the tiredness in your eyes, hear it in the groggy whisper of your words. You don’t seem to register what’s going on, not like he does. The way your hand gently wraps around his wrist causes his heart to miss a beat, a pang of possessive need filling his chest.

“Just-“ he swallows roughly, trying to control the sudden urge to push you down on the bed and cover your body with his own. “Need to make sure you’re okay.”

Your brows furrow at his words, head tilting again in confusion, your doe eyes staring deeply into his.

"Why wouldn't I be?" 

That pout you make when you're confused? He finds it adorable. And you’re pouting now, staring up at him through heavy eyes, not a clue in the world about the memories or the nightmares that have been tormenting him.

John’s fingers grip your chin, holding your face steady so he can look at you. To really look at you. Your soft face, your slightly chapped lips, the dopey eyes that don’t seem to understand.

“I need to make sure,” he repeats. His voice gravelly and deep, rough in a way that even surprises himself.

You blink slowly, sluggishly, keeping your eyes on him despite the urge to close them.

"Cap, I'm all in one piece." you say softly, a hint of protest in your voice. Lazily raising your arms as if to point out that you are in fact all intact, you add, "see?"

The innocent gesture has his stomach twisting. Your top rides up, baring more skin, a slice of your stomach exposed in the dark. When you drop your arms again, the movement causes the fabric to ride up even more, the top shifting along your shoulder and causing the strap to dip down, just enough to show the upper edge of your breast.

John’s eyes fix on the sight, on that sliver of smooth, naked skin. The need to run his hands all over you, feel everything and confirm you’re here, is so strong that he releases your chin and grabs at your forearms instead, fingers curling around your soft flesh.

He pulls you a little closer, until he can look down at you easier. A rough sigh leaves his lips as he gives you a slow glance over. One hand pulls your top back into place. His fingers linger on your bare skin, brushing along the strap.

"I can see that.” 

Your stomach flips at the way he grabs onto your forearms, at the way he stares down at you with such intensity. You still can't wrap your head around what's happening; it all feels like a dream, both so vivid and dazed.

With your arms restrained by his grasp, you bend your head to one side and rub the corner of your eye with your shoulder, causing the strap to drop again. This time, he does not slide it back on. 

"Then... Can I go back to sleep?" you ask him softly, quietly, a hint of plea in your voice. A yawn escapes you right after.

John’s grip on your flesh tightens at the sight of your yawn, but it’s the sound of your slight plea in your quiet voice that makes his stomach do a flip.

“Not yet,” he mutters, not sure if he’s doing it to make himself feel better or because he’s enjoying the rush of power it gives him, holding you. “Gotta ask you somethin’ first.”

A breathy groan leaves your lips at his words. Your eyes, heavy and droopy, blink lazily at him.

"What... is... it?"

John’s fingers wander down, tracing along your collarbone again and lingering at your pulse point. You’re so tired and half out of it, that you don’t even seem to realize what he’s doing. He’s having a hard time controlling the urge to pull you against him, wrap himself around you and let the feeling of you pressed against him ease the flashbacks in his mind. You’re so soft and warm beneath his hand. The fact that he’s touching you like this, that he’s touching your bare skin and you’re letting him, is making him feel drunk on power.

“Do somethin’ f’me?”

You simply nod, slowly and mindlessly, bleary eyes drooping and resting for just a moment before you return your gaze to him.

"Whatever you need, sir..." you murmur under your breath, your words garbled from weariness.

Sir.

He nearly winces at the sound of his title coming out of your sleepy mouth. It does something to him, hearing you call him that when you’re like this. Soft and malleable and so compliant in your groggy state.

John is a strong man, but that? That makes him weak. So weak that he almost pulls you flush against him right there and then, to just hold you and feel you, really feel you. His mind immediately conjures up the many things he needs from you, some of which have nothing to do with his nightmares. You’re barely even fully aware of what you’re agreeing to, how vulnerable you are right now... But he takes a deep breath in, keeping his thoughts under control, focusing on the matter at hand.

“Need you to not be so reckless in the future.”

The words are gruff, but there’s an underlying hint of worry in them. He hates how much the sight of you lying limp and wounded in his arms messed with him, screwed with his mind. So much so that he hasn't been able to get some shuteye in months. 

"Reckless?" you parrot, looking lost. Your face lazily scrunches up in a puzzled frown, your eyes dropping to slits. Your mind is too muddled to connect the dots, to realize what he's referring to. The incident that almost took your life is so far off in your thoughts, so far off in time too, that you barely remember it happening at all. The only poignant memory you're left of the event is the large but healed scar on your side.

"Reckless." John repeats, his fingers leaving your collarbone to trace along that one little faint scar on your bicep, his mind instantly reeling with images of that nasty gash on your side he tried so desperately to clog with his hands. “You could have died.”

The rough tone of his voice seems to lift some of the fog from your mind, the words 'you could have died' resonating within you. Your hand twitches, yearning to move to your face and rub your eyes again, but his hold keeps your arms still.

"But I didn't." you whisper, your voice raspy. "And it's been months since."

John's fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around your arms. It's been months since it happened, and he still gets nightmares about cradling your bleeding body in his arms. Even months later, the sight of you being so close to death causes him to jolt awake with his heart hammering in his ribcage. Yes, it has been months, but for him, it happens again and again every fucking night. That moment is ever present in his mind.

“And I don’t want a repeat of it.” He says darkly. John glances down at you again, trying not to get caught up in the sight of you. “I don’t want that to ever happen again.”

You blink at him, his voice making your stomach churn. When he adopts that imposing tone of his, all you can do is nod and whisper, "Yes, sir."

John lets out a low huff out of his nose at the immediate obedience. That sense of power he’d felt earlier spikes, burning hot in his chest. 

He should back away. Let you go back to bed and get some sleep. You’re tired, you’re vulnerable and sleepy… and wearing that goddamn skimpy excuse for a top.

But instead, he hears himself saying: "Lie down... and let me see the wound." 

His order has your fuzzy mind spin. Your tired eyes widen in disbelief and confusion, seemingly regaining some focus.

"T-The scar's perfectly healed, cap. Why would you need to-"

The words stumble from your lips, groggy and tired, as you try to make sense of his demand. He can see the surprise flash in your weary eyes at his request, can feel the way you go to protest against his order. John’s grip on your upper arms tightens, his fingers pressing down into your soft flesh, shutting you up before you can finish your sentence.

“I'm not asking.” he says gruffly, his voice that low, authoritative tone that you’d usually instantly comply with. He moves even closer, making you have to crane your neck to keep looking at him.

“Lie down and show it to me.”

Your breath hitches at the way his grip tightens on your arms, at the way his voice drops gravely as he reaffirms his command.

You only stall for a moment, gulping, doe eyes boring into his, before you gently pull back from his hold and pad to the bed, tiredly easing yourself down onto the mattress. Your fingers roll up the hem of your top to the underside of your breasts, exposing your left side to him.

You’re disoriented and confused, mind fuzzy from sleep, but you still listen to him. You listen to his order. John’s mind is reeling as he takes in the sight of you lying on the bed. You’re obeying him so easily. So readily. And goddamnit, it’s making him feel insane. You’re following his every word like a good little soldier…

John lets his eyes rake down your form on the bed. You look so vulnerable, so soft and tired. It sparks a possessive urge in his chest. His eyes track the way your messy hair splays out on the pillow and the way your top slides up as you bare your skin to him. He follows you to the edge of the bed. His eyes keep flickering down to your stomach, to the bare skin that looks so very soft and warm and inviting.

The mattress dips beneath his weight as he sits down beside you with one knee settled on the bed and the other leg hanging from the edge.

He knows he’s being pushy, taking advantage of you like this, he knows it. You’re half out of it and clearly confused and he’s using it to his advantage. But the nightmares are too fresh on his mind, still replaying in flashes, and you looking so damn vulnerable and soft beneath him right now has all his instincts on edge.

John's eyes hungrily devour the sight of your exposed side, his eyes falling on the soft curves and the pale, fading scar; the wound reduced to a light puckered line, but nonetheless a stark reminder of how close you came to dying. How close he came to losing you.

You lie there, silently, heavy-lidded eyes gazing up at him. Your breathing is slightly altered just like the pace of your heart. Even through the drowsiness, you seem to realize how odd the situation is... The effects John's presence in your room, on your bed, so close to you, have on your tired body are evident. What you can't seem to pick up on is that strange flicker passing across his gaze as he examines your scar.

You keep silent though, simply staring up at him and keeping the fabric of your top rolled up, slightly pulling up your braless breasts with your hand as well, to push them out of the way.

John's eyes follow the way your chest slightly rises and falls with your breath. He notices the way it seems to stutter as his eyes drift over you. He doesn't know what to focus on. Your messy hair sprawled over the pillow, the soft curve of your breasts just barely exposed as you lift up the fabric of your top, your bare stomach and the faded scar. His eyes keep flickering from one part of you to the other, his mind going haywire at the sight of you, vulnerable and lying in front of him like this.

His mind begins to fill up with all kinds of thoughts. Thoughts of taking your top off entirely. Seeing all of you bared to him. Feeling your soft skin against his and running his hands all over you. Feeling your warm body under his own.

No matter how much he tries to resist, he can't refrain from reaching out with his hand and let his calloused fingers graze the bare skin of your scar.

The jolt of your body and the sound of you drawing in a sharp breath has his instincts flare in warning. But you don't recoil, you just look at him with wide, hazy eyes. Your body so close and warm and tense beneath his hand. So responsive to the touch, reacting without you even meaning to.

John's hand continues to graze over the skin of your scar, his thumb rubbing over the skin slowly, gently, feeling the way your stomach flexes beneath his touch. His eyes flicker up from the pale scar to look at your face.

"Does it still hurt?”

"It-" you try to answer, but your voice comes out raspy. That forces you to take a moment to clear your throat and wet your dry lips before trying again. "It itches or tingles from time to time... but it's nothing, really." you admit in a whisper, voice still raw as if reluctant to come out. Your fingers tighten a little on the fabric of the top, keeping it still on your chest.

"I see."

John's fingers keep moving over the scar tissue. Feeling the bumps and ridges of the skin, his eyes fixated on your stomach, on how you respond to his touch. Every breath and twitch and soft gasp makes his entire body flare up. It's a struggle to keep his mind somewhat coherent.

His eyes slowly move to your hands balled into the fabric of the top, the way you're holding on just a little bit tighter. He can tell that you're conscious of the fact that you're not fully clothed and that you're feeling vulnerable. Yet, he can't keep his hand away.

"Does it hurt now?" He reiterates. His hands continue to glide across the scar, fingers slowly tracing along the soft curve of your stomach.

You meekly shake your head in response. Your neck cocked slightly to the side, allowing your gaze to drift to his hand and watch as his fingers travel over your skin, so carefully, tenderly, yet... possessive.

"It... tingles a little." you whisper, muscles flexing again under his touch.

He's intoxicated by the sight of you underneath him, and you're responding so sweetly to his touch. Vulnerable, exhausted, but oh, so soft, warm, and sensitive. It's making him lose his mind, seeing you like this. Feeling your heat against his fingers. Seeing you in that damn top barely cresting just under your breasts.

Without thinking, he shifts on the mattress, leaning down to press his lips on your scar.

You gasp sharply, body arching at the sudden contact. Your tired eyes widen and the fabric of your top falls from your hold as you plant your palms on either side of you on the mattress, slightly lifting your torso from the bed.

John is getting addicted to your noises. To the way you gasp and arch beneath his touch. It's like a sick taste of what it would be like to really have you like this. To have you writhing beneath him, moaning and gasping because of him.

His hand tightens on your stomach. He can feel the muscles flex beneath his touch, the way your body reacts on instinct to his lips on the scar. He doesn't think. He just acts. He kisses the scar again, feeling a sense of possession wash over him at the feeling of your soft skin against his lips.

You flinch again at each kiss, soft gasps falling from your lips as you stare down at him, confused, dazed...

"C-Cap...?" you hesitantly call for him, your voice barely audible, breathless. "W-what are you-"

"Shh."

His free hand comes up to rest on your side, fingers splaying across the skin and holding you in place. Holding you down. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He's losing control, feeling drunk just from having you below him, reacting to his touch. Letting him do all these things... letting him take all these liberties without even fighting back.

He shouldn't be doing this. Taking advantage of you like this. But your skin is just so soft, and you're so responsive to him, and he can't stop himself. This is his medicine. His medicine against the nightmares, against the horrible memories plaguing his mind. 

Soft gasp after gasp is falling from your lips, sweet in John's ears. The sound and the sight of your body arching below him, writhing at his every touch, is driving him insane. Your fingers digging into the sheets, your body trembling and shaking in his hold, the way your chest rises and falls with your labored breaths. It's all just so damn good. A stark contrast to the sight that wakes him up every damn night. He needs to see you like this. To have you arching and writhing and gasping under him. To see you alive.

He sucks a hot, slow kiss into the sensitive skin of your abdomen, tasting the salty sweat on your skin. His fingers dig into the flesh at your side, holding you down against the bed and keeping you completely in place. His other hand drifts up slowly, tracing over the soft curve of your ribs, his fingers brushing against the bottom curve of your breast, slipping under the top.

"Oh~!"

The unexpected sensation of his rough fingers touching the delicate flesh of your breast sends your fuzzy thoughts spinning. Is this really happening? You can't think straight. And you're convinced that even without the lethargy of weariness inhibiting your judgment, you wouldn't be able to think clearly. Not with your captain kissing your tummy, cradling your breasts, and keeping you pinned to the bed. Your handsome captain… whom you secretly adore...

Your mewling gasp makes a bolt of heat shoot up his spine and all the blood in his body head straight south. The noise that escapes from your lips has his hand reflexively closing over your breast, his fingers squeezing on the warm, supple flesh. A dark, possessive part of his mind revels in the noises you're making, in the way your body shivers at his touch. In having you pinned down with his hand and mouth on your skin. No fight back, no pushing him away, no words of complaint fall from your lips as he kisses and touches and holds you down with little effort. He would pull away from you if you asked him to, he believes that strongly. He would never hurt you, even with the promise of making you feel better. But you aren't pushing him away. You are not protesting. You're not showing him any signs of objections. And it isn't only because you are worn out. He can see it in your eyes and hear it in the way you respond to his touch. You like it, you enjoy his attention. And that's enough to spur him further.

His fingers delicately caress the smooth curve of your breast, feeling the pillowy and tender flesh just beneath his fingertips. He has lost all sense of control at this point. All sense of reason. All he can think about is how soft you are, how warm and malleable beneath him, how deeply he craves to touch more of you…

He lifts his hands, tugging at the fabric of your top, revealing your chest to his gaze. He can't resist a second longer, and he pounces on your breast, attaching his lips on your hard nipple. His eyes flicker up to your face, taking in your expression, your glazed eyes, the way your back arches up, and your lips part to let those delicious moans escape.

A shiver of pleasure strikes your tired form. One of your hands moves spontaneously to his head, fingers threading in his hair, not to push him away, but to hold him there, against your chest. That provokes a pleased hum to rumble in his throat. It only serves as confirmation that you’re not trying to stop him but rather holding him against you. Encouraging him, even. And he's more than inclined to indulge you.

He's lost every ounce of his restraint at this point. He can't recall why he came to your room in the first place. What was he seeking for? Just to look at you. Or perhaps he subconsciously hoped for more. Now... There is no going back from this. And all he knows is that he's going to make you feel good, make you feel alive and to engrave the sight of you, high on pleasure, into his tortured mind so that it may take the place of any other horrible memories he has of you.

"John..." you whine softly, breathlessly, your half-closed eyes peering down at him, watching as he cradles your breasts and sucks on your nipple, scratching and tickling your sensitive skin with his beard. Your entire body is ablaze, tightening from both fatigue and yearning.

Hearing the sweet quivering sound of your voice uttering his name in the quiet night has his heart thunder in his chest. He keeps his focus on your face, watching how the mist in your eyes seems to intensify. 

He pulls away from your tits with a wet sound just long enough to speak, his voice deep and rough. "Say my name again."

John's mind is slowly slipping into a haze of lust and possessiveness. He's never heard his name sound like that ever before. It's like a drug, something that hooks over his core and keeps him there, wanting to make you utter his name again and again in that pleading tone as if you were begging for more.

He can't take it any longer. Without any warning, he's pulling back from your chest and peeling his shirt off, discarding it as if it was scorching his skin. He doesn’t give you time to register one action, before he rushes onto another. Rough hands grabbing onto the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down in one firm and swift motion.

Your muffled mind struggles to keep up. Droopy, glazed eyes try to follow his movements, your hands idly resting on the mattress, your bare chest raising and falling heavily, mouth open and drawing each breath in quick, quivering gasps. Your newly exposed thighs press together out of instinct, attempting to give you relief from the ache in your core. You can feel the dampness of your panties as they brush against the inner flesh of your thighs. You can feel how aroused you are for him.

John's eyes immediately catch the subtle movement of your legs bending at the knee and rubbing together. And his hands don't take long to follow. He's now hunched over you, his large build dwarfing your smaller, supple body. His hand travels along the inner surface of your trembling thigh, gliding over the smooth skin till his fingers reach the edge of your underwear, then slide across the thin fabric. He can feel the heat and the wetness through the material and that’s enough to trigger a deep groan from the back of his throat, a sound that's somewhere between an exhale and a growl.

This night has gone so far off course he doubts either of you will be able to look at each other the same way after this. But he doesn't care. All he cares about is being with you, and making you feel good. He's not thinking anymore. Thinking has fled his mind. 

He pushes your legs apart, letting his hands run up your thighs towards your center, feeling your muscles tense at his touch.

“Oh, my sweet girl…” he coos, gliding his palm over the expanse of your panties, making you whimper in response, trembling in delight at the contact and his words.

His voice is low, deep, and full of praise as he looks down at you, watching intently the way your body reacts to his touch.

“My pretty girl…”

He repeats the motion, this time with a little more pressure, rubbing the flat of his palm against your clothed heat, watching with a deep, possessive pride the way your thighs shiver and twitch at his touch. He can feel the dampness leaking through the fabric, the heat and the moisture soaking into his skin.

"My reckless, pretty, pretty girl…." he says, his tone firm and territorial, with a tinge of frustration edging it.

He sweeps his hand over the small patch of fabric that covers you, pressing the heel of his palm to your swelling bundle of nerves, drawing a tight circular pattern over it while relishing the way your thighs spasm and your eyelids flutter.

"Giving me such a fright…"

The firm, unyielding pressure of the palm against you sends waves and waves of ecstasy shooting straight to your core. You attempt to speak, to ask him what he means, but only whimpers leave your lips.

He drinks in the sight of you, flushed and breathless, thighs twitching and clenching, chest rising and falling with you heavy breaths, trying to speak but unable to form coherent words. You're so desperate for him, so responsive to his touch, it's making his head spin. He wants to see more of you, he needs it to forget the nightmares. He needs you. 

He moves closer, his hand still firmly rubbing against your heat, fingers curling on the drenched fabric, as he nuzzles your neck and presses scorching, wet kisses all over your skin. His mustaches and beard tease your skin, amplifying the tingling feeling that spreads throughout your body. 

His gaze burns into yours, holding you captive as he moves his palm over your heat in slow, languid circles, watching every expression and twitch of your face from up close, taking every noise that escapes your lips as a hint, making him adjust his touches until he gets the prettiest, loudest moan from you.

"Getting yourself hurt…"

He rubs his hand even more firmly, his palm moving faster and faster, applying more and more pressure on your sensitive nub, as if to emphasize every word he is saying, but it only causes you to lose more focus on his voice.

“Do you have any idea what it does to me… to see you in danger?” he whispers, his voice deep and rough. His free hand slides under your head, to hold onto the nape of your neck. “To see you in pain?”

If you were out of your mind before, you're being totally pushed out of your body now as he takes you closer and closer to the edge. You hear him, you understand what he is saying, but you are unable to form a single thought; you lack the energy to answer or apologize.

Your whole body is buzzing like a live wire, every nerve on fire, your mind blank with primal urges. 

He's watching your face, watching your eyelids flutter with each stroke of his hand, watching your lips part and your tongue slip to moisten them, watching you shiver and writhe under him, whimpering and desperate for release.

"You give me too many damn heart attacks, you know that? Keepin’ me up every night…"

“M’sorry-” you manage to cry out, gazing up at him but battling to keep your eyes open. Your hands find his tensed arm, and cling onto it for support as you feel the knot in your belly tightening, your body arching in anticipation.

Your apology is hardly coherent. He can hear the slur in your jumbled words, feel the tremors in your frame, see your eyes struggling to stay focused, your body arching and bucking and quivering under his touch, your fingers digging into his arm as if you're trying to hold on for dear life.

“I know, doll…” he croons, lips grazing the side of your jaw, close to your ear. You can feel his warm breath fanning your skin, rising goosebumps all over it.

“You’ll be the death of me… but you’re so damn beautiful-”

You look so helpless, so lovely like this. He just wants to give you what you want. His hand grinds against you, harder but steadier, increasing the pressure in a demanding and relentless motion. His eyes keen on watching the way you wriggle and arch, the way your eyes squeeze shut and your jaw falls slack as he ultimately pushes you over the edge.

"That's it, doll... that's it... come for me... my sweet girl…”

Your release is a sight to behold. Your body tenses like a bowstring before you climax, your moans and gasps turning into mewls of his name with the last shred of breath in your lungs, your eyes flying wide open and rolling back in your head, your nails sinking into his arm… then your entire body goes limp. Your legs tremble and spasm beneath him as he guides you through the aftershocks. John doesn't let up, doesn't stop moving his palm, prolonging your peak until you're left spent and boneless, breathing heavily. Only then does his hand slowly come to a halt, brushing one final time over your soaked panties as he lowers his forehead on yours. His breath comes out in ragged gasps, his gaze glued to your pretty face, his fingers leisurely rubbing the back of your head. When he moves slightly to pull back and take you in, he becomes acutely aware of the strain in his bulge, struggling against the confinement of his jeans. He quickly unzips them and lets his stiff length breathe, with him drawing in a shuddering breath as well.

He chances a look at your panties, the possessive pride in him flares up at the sight; the fabric is so drenched it’s become see-through. His fingers gently move over it, his eyes instantly flashing to your face as you protest weakly at the contact. You're still lost in the high, eyes closed, lips parted, and chest heaving heavily. He’s never seen anything more beautiful; the image is going to be forever burnt to the inside of his eyelids. Well, he hopes so. He’d gladly wake up every fucking night at the memory of this, instead.

John watches you for a moment, letting you regain your bearings. If he could, he would keep you in this state, breathless and blissed-out… but he needs more. He’s only had a taste and he’s already addicted.

“You with me, doll…?”

He murmurs the words against your lips, a small, amused smile tugging at his mouth at the way you don’t even pretend to be coherent. You were barely conscious before, he doubts you’ll be able to keep your eyes open for the rest of the night… but he needs you to be present for what comes next.

He dips in and draws your nipple into his mouth, sucking on it before gently nipping it between his teeth, like he’s coaxing you back to consciousness.

You whine softly, eyes fluttering and slowly managing to open up. Your hand instinctively reaches out for his hair. 

Your fingers pull on his short strands just the way he likes it, making his eyes grow dark. And he can’t help but chuckle as he notices your half-lidded attempt at a smile, watching your tired self struggle to lift the corner of your mouth as if it took all your strength to do so.

He reaches down, fingers curling around your jaw and gently shaking it to make sure you focus on him. “There you are…” He coos, his voice deep and gravelly. “Did I wear you out already, sweetdoll?”

You groan, eyes dropping closed again and slowly opening up a few seconds later.

“Hmm… ‘was already worn out-” you slur, voice hoarse and quiet, almost as if it's coming from someplace distant. 

You’re barely lucid, half-conscious, and yet you’re still trying to sass him. That’s his girl.

He chuckles again, shaking his head as he leans in to nuzzle his face into the crook of your neck. He’s smiling widely as he presses open-mouthed kisses to your skin, traveling up your jaw, the corner of your mouth, your cheek.

"I know, sweetheart. I know..." He murmurs the words against your temple, his fingers gently stroking the side of your face, caressing over your cheekbones, your eyelashes, your mouth.

"But you're about to sleep on me. Can't have that…"

He wraps his fingers around your jaw and gives it another gentle squeeze. “You’ll have to stay awake a little longer, sweetheart. Can you do that for me?”

He keeps his firm grip on your jaw, waiting patiently for your hazy eyes to focus back on him. The expression you wear, dazed and exhausted, is like something out of his most depraved, shameful dreams.

“I don’t know if I can, John…” 

His expression softens at the sound of your weak voice. He can’t deny that you look downright adorable right now, your eyes droopy and half closed, your jaw slack in his hand, every inch of you vulnerable and malleable in his grasp. 

He lets go of your jaw and gently runs a hand through your hair, smoothing the loose strands away from your face. “Try for me, doll. Can you at least try?”

Your head lolls tiredly against the pillow, following the movement of his hand, a quiet hum leaving your lips. "M'so tired..." Your slurred whisper is barely audible, your voice growing ever distant. Your eyes cross as your eyelids droop again. 

John sighs. He can see the exhaustion in your face, the way your eyes keep wanting to slip close against your will, how much you desperately want to give into the fatigue. You look like you’re about to pass out at any moment now.

His hand keeps on caressing your hair as he weighs his options in his mind, trying to figure out what he should do. He can’t deny that he wants to do so many things to you… One above all, peeling those ruined panties off your legs and burying his face in your wetness, devouring your cunt and every drop of your juices like a man starved and feeling your soft thighs twitch and tremble and clamp against his head. Then he would sink his cock inside your still fluttering walls and watch your spent body come alive again an again and again as he fucks you all night long.

His eyes drop to your thighs, his jaw clenching tight. He can feel his stomach twisting and his erection throb painfully in longing even only at the thought of doing all of that to you. But you’re too exhausted. Too out of it. He wants you to enjoy every second of what he plans to do to you, but in your state you wouldn’t be able to.

His eyes flicker to your face again and he leans in to gently kiss your lips. He feels you respond, even if meekly. He pulls back to look down at you again, your eyes reduced to slits but fixed on him. Your hand lazily reaches up to cradle his cheek. He smiles at the gesture, his heart fluttering in his chest.

Maybe he can do one last thing before you doze off to sleep. 

Carefully, he eases himself down next to you, lying on the mattress on his side and gently moving your body so he’s spooning you.

“Stay awake for me just a couple more moments, hm? Just a couple more, doll.” he croons in your ear as he wraps one strong arm around your middle and moves his other hand to his pants to hurriedly tug them further down, together with his boxers. 

You mumble sluggishly in response, but relax into his warmth, head lolling back, forehead brushing the rough skin of his cheek. He places a firm kiss on your temple while digging his fingers into the soft flesh of your belly and pulling your panties to the side with his other hand. He shifts, bringing his hips closer to yours and letting his hard length rub along the crevice of your ass.

“Mmh… John-?”

He squeezes you harder as he presses his cock against you, moving it up and down a few times before guiding it between your thighs and through your soaked folds. A low groan rumbles through his throat, blending with your weak whimper. His breath fans the side of your face as he gently pushes his groin into your ass, coating his length in your juices, his tip hitting the moist fabric of your panties, eliciting one more exhale from him. He pulls you flush against him until your body is molded into his. Only then does he begin to buck his hips back and forth, letting your drenched folds stroke his cock and your panties tease its head. He won't fuck you, not properly, not while you're not fully present, but he is going to steal one more orgasm from your exhausted body - and pleasure himself in the process - before allowing you to drift off completely.

“It’s alright, sweet girl… It's alright…”

He buries his face in the crook of your neck, nuzzling your skin and planting lazy kisses all over it. John keeps his arm wrapped around your middle and his hand splayed over your soft stomach, holding you in place against his body as he moves leisurely against you. His pace is so slow and steady that it feels like it's lulling you to sleep. That's what he wishes to do; he wants to ease you back to sleep by numbing your nerves with pure bliss. He wants you to collapse with his cock grinding against your cunt, stimulating your swollen nub with each slow, deliberate push.

You’re boneless against him. Moaning ever softly, body too tired to wriggle but tensing up in ecstasy all over again. He can feel the flutter of your stomach under his palm, the quick steady puffs of air leaving your nostrils. John moves his free hand to your hip, letting it glide over your smooth skin until it closes around the underside of your thigh and gently lifts it and places it over his leg. Both of you moan at the new position which lets you both feel more of each other. 

He feels your hips shake and hears your shallow breaths getting louder. He knows you’re already close. That’s good. You’re still awake for it. That's all he wanted. The hand resting on your belly glides down your mound, slipping under the fabric of your panties and touching your heat. He groans at the contact. You’re so fucking wet and hot… The pads of his fingers find your clitoris and start to rub tight circles over it. His lips press into the side of your neck, feeling your pulse, while you squirm faintly at the added stimuli. You make such pretty sounds for him. Soft mewls and moans, whimpers and gasps. Even weak and tired as you are, your body’s still so reactive to him. 

“That’s it, doll… you’re such a good girl…” he praises in a breathless whisper upon your flushed skin. “Stay with me… just a bit longer…”

When his hot breath brushes against your neck, he can feel a shudder go down your spine. He can hear your breathing getting heavier, your body twitching and trembling against him, and the whole feel of you is driving him insane.

It just takes a few more thrusts of his hips and flicks of his fingers for you to come undone again, spasming weakly in his arms - arms that hold you snugly to soothe your tremors. You cum all over his length, letting out a feeble cry so deliciously filthy that it makes his hips stutter. He halts altogether before he can over stimulate you.

“There you go, my sweet girl… There you go…” he coos in your ear, lips brushing against your cheek, before he buries his nose in your hair and drinks in your scent. 

John squeezes you tightly in his embrace until your shakes and ragged breaths subside. He watches your eyelids flutter one more time before they drop and remain closed.

He feels your body sag against his, your muscles going entirely limp in his arms. He keeps you nestled into him, his hand resting on your stomach and softly kneading soothing circles over your scar, while your other leg lies boneless over his. He can hear your breathing even out, slowly falling deep and regular, the warm puffs of air hitting his arm with each exhale. For a few moments, he remains still, listening to the sound of your breathing, feeling the rise and fall of your chest… trying to figure out if you’re still conscious, but your soft even breaths confirm to him you’ve finally fallen asleep.

He glances down at your serene expression, eyes closed and lips parted. Even in the shadows, he can see the light drool trickling from the corner of your lips. You’re completely knocked out.

John takes a few deep shaky breaths, his fingers digging into your hip. He allows himself a few more thrusts, taking care not to disturb your sleep. It’s not long before he falls apart, dumping his load inside your undies and muffling his moan with your hair.

He takes a few moments to regain his bearings, breathing deeply, getting drunk on the scent of you and him mixing together. Then, with great care, he fixes your clothes on your unconscious body, as well as his own pants, and wraps your form in his muscular arms, pressing every inch of you against him, until you're completely enveloped in his embrace.

He can’t help but notice how right it feels to hold you like this, to have you nestled against his chest, protected and secure in his arms.

A content sigh escapes his lips.

Closing his eyes, he knows this time no nightmare will jolt him awake. Not with you, warm, soft, and alive, sleeping soundly in his arms. Not with the steady drumming beat of your heart drowning out the demons in his mind.

With one more kiss brushed upon your bare shoulder, he whispers, "Sleep tight, sweetheart." before succumbing to his own exhaustion.

MORE STORIES 🥀

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[diejager]

how would the cod group react to someone who has medical conditions that affect them mildly but constantly throughout the day? Like, it’s very mild, but constantly there and noticeable

(Eds is a pain in the ass)

I don’t know what Ed was, but it gave me erectile dysfunction as a medical condition, or an eating disorder for mental disorder. I’m not sure which is which, so eh, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Parosmia Cw: I have no medical knowledge, this is all from google, mild medical condition, loss/distortion of smell and taste, triggering scents, tell me if I missed any.

You were transparent with your annoying condition, your documentation had it written down in medical conditions along with occasional tinnitus and sudden bouts of depression related to your distortion of scents. You’ve had some odours lose their potency, the fresh smell of cold aloe and cucumber dimming to a ghost of it’s freshness, and you’ve had scents that became too strong and nauseating, the usually delicious taste of steak became a nauseating rot and overpowering. 

Laswell had disclosed it to Price the day she showed him your file, letting him know that your nose might comprimiseyour operations if anything triggered it, but that, form experience from working with you, you knew how to deal with the disgust and urge to puke. She left him with out much convincing needed, because he’d seen you work once in a past mission in Siberia, a clandestine OP that had him sweating despite the freezing tempature and you hadn’t batted an eye at the attrocious rotting of dead elks and wolves near the base. He let the others know and reassured them that it wouldn’t compromise the mission if it were triggered. Gaz and Soap were more enthusiastic about having you, a little excited of having another teammate to act out with or to prank, and Ghost was more apprehensive and careful about introducing a new operation, but he’d turn around —eventually.

And he did, Ghost was the most careful around you, making sure that his musk and sweat was too strong to your nose, he watched out for any triggering odours and made sure to memorise all your triggers. He might not know how it felt, but he could only sympathise, trying his best to relieve your annoyance and stop anything from happening if he knew how to. It surprised Price how fast Ghost had opened up to you, to your snark and snide replies and heart-stopping grins. 

Fortunately, your parosmia was mild, a constant annoyance, but it was milder than the headaches Price had every night. He might not have as much time as the others to spend with you, but whenever he had the time, he would join your ragtag group for a drink in your room rather than the bar when he learned that the smell of oily and oversaturated fries and burgers had your head pulsing and throat clog up. He never brought up the need to go at a bar, he didn’t mind buying bottles and hide them in his office until the moment came for a night drink with his Task Force. 

Suprisingly, Gaz was understanding, quick to drop something to help you if you had a moment. Gaz would help you lean over the toilet seat, his hand running down your back in a soothing pattern, encouraging you to let it out and praising you for being strong. He helped you to your feet, knees weak and still a bit nauseous, and cleaned your face with a wet towel and handed you a cup to rinse your mouth before he lead you to your room, seated on your bed and helping you sleep it off. Gaz was a softer shoulder to lean on, confident in his care and unworried about being caught cuddling with you.

And Soap, oh ignorant Johnny, was confused at first, he made mistakes here and there, but he’s smart and resourceful. He might’ve been confused, but he made up for it, coming up with the weirdest and most amusing way to help you around base. He was as obnoxious about it as he was shamelessly showering you with affection, hanging off your shoulder and babbling your ears off while he wafted a scented near you that he learned was relaxing and comfortably soft for your olfactory nerves. 

They were surprisingly welcoming and went out of their way to make you comfortable in all and every form, you were honestly happy about it, even if you happened to annoy Ghost with your back talk as much as you did with Price, only encouraging and being encouraged by the younger men of the group.

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @im-making-an-effort @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @danielle143 @tuttifuckinfruttifriday @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @petwifed @randominstake @cassiecasluciluce @hayleybarnesx @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @infpt-zylith @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts

[fallingskiesandrisingseas]

The Pevensie kids are otherwordly in more ways than the naked eye reveals.

For starters, with all the years they have spent around great cats, they are absolutely silent when they walk. They can stalk and prowl like no one's business, and once, when a girl pissed off Lucy, she showed her her teeth.

When a shrink asks her why she is scared of cats, so many years later , she remembers the white flash in the schoolyard, the sudden certainty of death.

Second of all, they don't seem to leave footprints in snow. In the winters of Narnia, magic was all around Cair Paravel, benign spirits showing them how to leave no traces, go unseen in the great white. Some swear they move without touching the earth. No one is sure enough to rebutt them.

The Pevensies are unbeatable in snowball fights. Especially Susan can throw like a honkball pitcher, able to single out and pick off targets that should be out of reach.

When the boys drink alcohol for the first time, at ages 17 and 15, they turn out to have great tolerance, something no one their age should have. Yet Peter and Edmund can beat anyone in a drinking game. Narnian spirits were strong (pun intented), so they do not find this feat particularly challenging. And no one understands how Susan puts away bottles and bottles of wine without ever slurring her words or losing her razor sharp mind.

The boys that keep pouring her more wine, hoping to take her home drunk, leave disappointed every night. Susan knows what's up. She's been forced to sit through boring diplomatic dinners with alcohol as her only interesting companion, is used to men trying to take advantage when she drinks. She will not be tricked by school boys.

They have a tolerance for other substances, too.

When someone gets the bright idea to roofie Lucy at age 16, he ends up with a nail through his foot, hanging from the highest tree in London.

Lucy shows up the next day with dirt under her nails and a hammer in her backpack. The teachers take one look at Peter, who stares back with a glare that could refreeze Narnia, and decide not to say a word.

They're all insanely strong swimmers. Susan won prizes before, but now she's breaking records. Edmund saves a man twice his weight from drowing, dragging him along across a cold lake for half a mile.

No one understands how the scrawny, 5"9 kid pulled that off. Or how he manages to hold his breath for so long.

And then there is the question of their minds.

Suddenly, Edmund can beat even the most experienced men in chess. He goes on to become champion of the region and then of the whole of England.

Peter, once a mediocre student, is now a stunningly good writer. When his professor reads his essay for Ethics, he weeps, something that has never happened before. Many see a future in academia for him.

Susan becomes known as the best problem solver in school. She's able to resolve many conflicts, not in the least because she's so attractive men stop thinking about fighting the second she steps into a room. But underneath the beauty resides a smooth operator. Her professors don't doubt for a second she'll be a brilliant politician.

Lucy no longer has the child like innocence from before the war. Her sense of wonder never left her, though. The centaurs have taught her astronomy, and looking at the stars reminds her of Narnia, one of the few things that are the same. The boarding school telescope goes missing an awful lot, as does she. Often, her brothers and sister come along, especially on bright nights. They never get caught.

They've changed. And they hold onto these pieces of Narnia, because it is all they have left.

[batsythoughts]

I know nobody probably wants this, but I had this spiral of thoughts while at work today and had to share. What if the Joker had a child that no one had known about?

Not like a teenager that had been under his care for years and mentally crazy like the Joker, but like a knee-high, wide eyed, 'have uppies?' toddler.

Like, imagine that Batman had busted a part of Joker's operations and was talking with the officers

He realized it was only a couple hours until sunrise and had to go and get some rest for a big meeting he had with his lawyers

The last thing he said was to round up every person in the building and put them all in a secure cell in the Asylum

Immediately after Batman leaves, one of the officers finds this small child in a room with multiple screens playing different escapades that the Joker had performed over the years

Poor kid was strapped to a chair and sobbing when the officer frantically undid the ropes and got the kid out of that room

Everyone was confused about what they should potentially do with this kid who looked like a miniature clown

Without many options, the kid gets sent to the Asylum with all the Joker's henchmen who are equally as confused about who the hell this kid was

The Warden is fucking livid because what the FUCK is a kid doing here, but it was the safest place to be while everyone tried to figure out if the child was stable to be around the nonvillainous population

Most of the detainees are confused, but none of them speak out of turn to them

In fact, the kid becomes the reason most of them behave to a degree

It is still a prison after all with rules and there were no exceptions even with a child

Some of the inmates would get into small altercations during meal times to keep the guards distracted while the cooks would sneak small bits of food to other inmates so they could give the kid a snack later in the day

Sure it could cost them their job, but what kind of person would let a child go hungry throughout the day?

Anyways, a couple weeks go by and most crime had gone down during the night. No attempted escapes or extravagant overtakings of any kind from almost any villain

Bruce and the boys are very confused by the sudden change, but silently welcome the relaxed pace that is happening

Alfred was taking the day to get groceries for the Manor with Jason being dragged along for some 'social interaction'

Mostly so Alfred had someone else to push the shopping cart and Tim and Damian refused to go to the store, but that's besides the point

Alfred was looking between two different brownie mixes when two women walk by

They talked about how the guards are bordering on taking their job too serious with the one inmate they had

Alfred began to tune them out as he began to put one of the mixes in the cart when he suddenly froze in place

"I mean, the kid's been through enough already. How many 4-year-olds do you know that have semipermanent white paint on their whole body with dyed purple hair?"

Alfred's hand remained suspended in air as the women slowly walked past them. His mind flashed back to a few years ago when he remembered Bruce telling him about Harley suddenly stopped coming to any scheme the Joker had for over half a year. And then she came back slightly more manic than she was previously for a few month after

Jason, who had been spaced out, glanced at Alfred and thought the older man was having a stroke. He had never seen the butler so still in all the time that they had known one another. Jason swears he can't even see him breath for a good 12 seconds

Alfred quickly puts the baking mix on the shelf, not even looking to make sure it was in the right spot. Jason felt his blood run cold at that sight alone as the bulter walked off and grabbed Jason's collar

The cart partially full of groceries was forgotten as Alfred went to the children's section and picked up a box with a toddler's car seat in it. Went to the register and paying before going to the car and expertly putting car seat in the middle backseat

Jason felt extremely confused as he watched the whole scene before he hesitantly decided to ask, "What do we need a carseat for? We don't have a kid that needs one."

Alfred broke down the empty box and put it in the trunk before going to open the passenger door for Jason. Walking over to the driver's side and calmly getting in. "Not yet."

Cue Jason terrified for his life as Alfred speeds through the streets because DEAR GOD THE SPEED LIMIT IS 55 NOT 82!

Jason pulls out his phone to record the whole thing before it was over because no one would believe this if he didn'thave proof. Barely registering that he had accidentally started a live stream on one of the Wayne Enterprise's accounts Tim had connected him to at some point

Alfred only slams on the breaks when he gets to the gates of Arkham Asylum. Glaring down the guard who tries to yell at him before coldly stating, "I'm here for the child."

The guard begins protesting that it's a restricted area, but Alfred stared him down with a glare that Jason had only seen a handful of times in his life when one of the boys had fucked up bad

The guard keeps telling them to turn around and Alfred reached under the dash and when the FUCK did he hide a GUN under there?!

"The child. Now." The guard opened the gate and Alfred pulled in before putting the gun away and shutting the car off

Jason considers staying in the car as Alfred gets out and begins marching to the door. But God, he didn't want to explain to Bruce that he didn't even fully know why Alfred conned his way into a high security prison

The two of them walk through the corridors to an unknown destination. Jason looking both confused and terrified while flipping the camera between him and Alfred until they make it to the cafeteria

All the inmates look over at the two of them as they walk in, Alfred looking over the crowd before spotting the spot of purple in the sea of orange jumpsuits

He walks with over to Poison Ivy who was carrying the little one around before holding out his hands. Ivy looks at him for a moment before giving a small nod in understanding and letting him take the child

"Take good care of them or I will come for you, old man." Ivy warns him before giving a small wave to the child. "Have a good time sweetie."

"Bye bye, Aunt Ivy." Alfred began to walk back to Jason. Glaring softly as the guards try to block his path

Half of them are on the ground in just a few seconds as most of the inmates start a fight with the guards. Each of them waving bye as Alfred walks back to Jason and to the car

By looks alone, Jason could tell exactly who's kid this was. Who wouldn't be able to when they looked just like a fucking child circus star

Jason stares in confusion as Alred gently puts the child in the car seat and buckles them in. Patting their head before telling Jason to get in the back

He's too scared to argue so he gets in behind the passenger seat as Alfred opens the door to get in but stops when the Warden comes marching over

Leaving the door open, Alfred calmly walks over the the man while getting yelled at that he can't just take a prisoner simply because he wants to

Jason flips the camera to show Alfred calmly taking in the yells of the Warden

The moment he tried to walk past the butler to get to the car, Alfred backhanded him so hard the Warden fell to the ground

Jason stared in shock as Alfred got in the car and began driving back towards the City

Jason looks at the child who stares back at him with the same intensity until they looked out the window and pointing. "Where going?"

"To get you some food and new clothes." Alfred speaks plainly as he got to a drive thru. Quickly ordering a kids meal and handing it back the moment it was ready.

Jason watched as the child began eating the moment the food was in their lap. Occasionally offering him a piece which he always denied so the kid ate the much needed nutrients

Alfred drove into the parking lot of a children's clothing store before getting out and carrying the child in with Jason following close behind

Alfred takes the kid through the aisles to pick out some clothes that they would want to wear

Jason chuckling at the sight of Alfred holding different shirts up to see if they would fit because they look so happy to get to pick out one with a derpy looking cat on it

After getting some outfits, they all walk to the checkout. Waiting in line for a moment before Alfred feels a small tug on his arm

Looking down, he sees the child pointing at something. Moving his gaze, he takes notice of a small stand with small Batman plushies on it

Jason holds back a laugh as he points the camera over the stand before looking at the child again. "You like Batman, huh?"

The both got an eager nod as curious eyes look back at Alfred, waiting for an answer. With a small smile, he grabbed one and put it on the counter to be paid for first. The moment it was scanned, it was handed down to the excited hands of its new owner

The kid gives an excited giggle as they held the toy over their head that the cashier couldn't help but smile as well

After everything was paid for, Alfred makes sure the child gets changed out of the prison uniform. He made a mental note to have Bruce investigate on why they even were given one in the first place

Getting back in the car, Alfred drives them back to the grocery store to restart the whole shopping trip with the intention for getting extra snacks for the family's new guest

With the child buckled into the child carrier in the cart, Jason began pushing the cart while following Alfred around the store once again

He tried holding the phone in his own hand, but gave up as little hands keep curiously grabbing at it to see the screen with wide eyes

He smiles as he watches the child make multiple different faces to the camera, a small fit of laughter sounding each time they look back up at Jason

He can help but wonder how such a calm and happy child (calm and happy compared to the teens Bruce took in) could be the offspring of the very man who made his life a living hell

They make it halfway through the store a confused voice called out to the men

Dick had just been grabbing a few snack items for himself to have for his weekend off

The last thing he expected to see was Jason hauling around a child while Alfred finished putting multiple different juice boxes from the shelf into the cart

He walked over with a bag of chips and frozen mini pizzas as he wore a confused frown while looking between the three of them

Jason wore a smirk as he leaned on the handle. Alfred gave him a small nod before he pulled out the shopping list to see what else was needed

The child look at him with a small head tilt. Blinking up at him before holding up the plush toy with a cheerful "Batsy!"

Dick has to bite his lip to hold back is laughter from the single action alone, because how ironic is it that this kid adores Batman specifically

Alfred begins to walk towards the pharmacy area, intending to get some hygiene supplies for the child

Dick begin following behind Jason as they follow behind. Dick leaning over to Jason and asking what the hell is going and why is there now a toddler

Before Jason can say anything, an excited fit of laughter sounds as a small hand points to something once again

It's the electronic area in the store, so maybe it's a movie that's caught the attention of the child

Jason and Dick look over and both of them stare in shock as they see a wall of TVs playing a live feed from a local news station. A group of news anchors smiling as they stare at a screen that was also playing onscreen

What makes the two of them most nervous is the half of the screen that was currently showing a smiling face with purple hair staring down at the camera once again

Jason frantically grabs his phone as he begins to try and figure out how to turn the video off as Dick frantically raises his voice because how did you not realize you were live filming and WHY IS THERE 3.2 BILLION PEOPLE WATCHING THIS!?

Jason finally turns the video off and the TV cuts the video almost immediately which causes half the reporters to boo

Let both let out a breath of relief as the feed cuts out, watching the screen to see how bad the damage was

To their surprise, the headline on screen read 'Happy Little Addition to Wayne Family?'

They both look confused as they hear one reporter talks about how the internet is enamored by this unexpected new appearance in the Wayne family. Grinning as they mention the people who watched the video decided to nickname the kid 'Giggles' because of how happy they were during the whole thing

Jason cursed under his breath as he realized he might have screwed up big time with Bruce because of the whole thing. He didn't get much time to think about it before Alfred came back and pulled the cart along with him

Dick shook his head with a stupid grin on his face as he looked at Jason "Bruce is going to have stroke when he finds out about this."

Which Bruce practically did. He was in a budgeted meeting for the new quarter for the company, so he didn't even have a clue about the whole livestream

He had just got out of the meeting when his assistant came up with a concerned expression. Hastily trying to tell him some news that he really needs to hear

Bruce rubs his temples as he calmly asks if he could get five minutes of quiet in his office before hearing any form of news

His assistant followed after him while trying to explain that it was really important that he sees this now

With a deep sigh, Bruce reluctantly took the tablet into his hand to stare at whatever statistic was on the screen

What he wasn't expecting to see was small clips of video with Alfred holding up different clothes and Jason sitting in the backseat as a kid offers him a french fry

The only reaction from Bruce was a deep sighas he handed the tablet back before saying he was leaving for the day

He was thankful that no paparazzi had come around to get any pictures as he was getting to his car

Damian and Tim had been in the living room when they had gotten back to the manor. Neither of them knowing about the livestream because why would they watch it if Bruce would just sum it up to the others later that night

Alfred came in with the sleeping child in his arms and walked over to the couch Tim was on. Placing them down on his lap before walking away to get the groceries put away

Both of the younger boys are confused as they watch this little clown lean further into Tim while holding a small toy in a death cuddle

After a few minutes, Dick and Jason both come walking in as Jason takes the remote from beside Damian and flips through the channels

Dick sits near Tim as he opens the bag of chips he got as he stares at the child with a confused expression

Everyone looks at Jason for a moment before Tim asks, "Where did you get the kid from?"

Jason settles on a small comedy movie as he gives a small shrug "Alfred picked the kid up from the Asylum. He pulled a gun he keeps under the dash on one of the guards."

Tim and Dick let out small noises of disbelief at the explanation while Damian wondered which gun Jason was meaning. Alfred had both a pistol and revolver in the car that he was aware of

The child slowly began to stir with a small whine as they opened their eyes. Glancing around to see the new environment they had found themselves in

Moving to their own spot on the couch while looking at the movie with confused and sleepy eyes

Damian stared down the child for a while before actually making eye contact

The both stared at one another for a moment before Damian finally spoke up "So the clown had an accident that he didn't want."

"Damian!" Dick begins to scold the boy as he sat up straight. His voice falling short when a little head rests on his chest as frantic cries fill the room

It's hard for them to understand the what was being said between the sobs, but Dick was able to get out was 'don't wanna go back'

Dick holds the child close while trying his hardest to make the crying stop

Everyone feels uncomfortable as the child holds the Batman toy tighter while hiccuping out something along the lines of 'no fight Batsy'

Dear lord, did they underestimate how traumatized this toddler was compared to the rest of them at such a young age

Tim picks up his phone to try and find a video or something that might try and calm down the whole situation

That's when he gets a notification about some video about someone named Giggles?

He clicks on it, thinking it would be able to a couple laughs

The moment it loads, he looks between Jason and the kid because why are they in a video on his phone right now

Apparently, people had made highlight reels of the live stream and were sharing them online. The one Tim had clicked on was designed like one of those joke style ones with the funny little background music

He was about to change it when he saw the kid lift their head up with a confused look as they stare at the phone in his hand

Tim quickly connects his phone to the TV so the video was now on screen

Tears were quickly gone as small laughs soon began to fill the living room

All the boys felt relieved as they watched along with the video. Laughing softly at a few parts that showed up in the video

All of them let out shocked noises when they all watched Alfred bitch slap the Warden like he was a fly

None of them noticed when the door opened when Bruce got home. He immediately went to the kitchen where Alfred was making a few sandwiches

Walking up to the counter, Bruce looked at Alfred while asking him why the internet is showing he basically broke a convict out of prison

Cutting the crust off the sandwiches, Alfred countered that without an actual crime being committed by the person, it wasn't breaking a convict out

Bruce was utterly unimpressed as he crossed his arms saying they had to go back to the asylum where they were placed by the police

Alfred puts the last sandwich on the plate before looking directly into Bruce's eyes

"Alright."

Bruce furrowed his brow in confusion. There was no way it was going to be that easy for Alfred to agree

"You have to break the news of taking the child back though."

There it was

Bruce held his gaze as he raised a brow. He could easily find a way to explain the whole situation and why it would be best-

The tugging on his suit jacket pulled Bruce out of his thoughts. Looking down, he saw a curious face looking back at him

"I have juice, please?"

Bruce had not expected someone who barely even reached his knee to be the child in question. He was thinking maybe it was a teenager who was on the younger looking side of the spectrum

He really needed to talk to his assistant about showing him more detailed photos next time

Bruce looked back at Alfred, who simply raised a brow in response

Cue the whole Batfam on or around the couch while watching a movie. Bruce sending messages to his assistant to remind him to schedule different doctors appointments with little Giggles cuddled up on his lap

No one knew the kids actual name so they were just going with it because it made the kid happy to be called that

Dick was on the end as he quickly took a selfie with Bruce patting Giggles' head as they showed him the stuffed Batman while drinking from a juice box. The others in various lounging positions close by while eating the sandwiches Alfred provided

He put it on his story with the caption 'Bruce is putting this kid in his will right now, I swear'

The peaceful atmosphere was broken when Alfred came walking in with Commissioner Gordon walking in with a deep frown

He looked at Bruce as he explained that Giggles had to go back to the asylum due to the safety of the city

All the boys stared at him with looks of disinterest as they silently dared him to try

Gordon let out a sigh as he explained that Giggles was placed in the care of the city after the bust had happened, so technically the Wayne's would potentially face kidnapping charges if they didn't give the kid to him

Alfred cleared his throat as he pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Gordan

He looked it over for a moment before taking in a deep breath while rubbing his temple

He handed the paper back as he mumbles that he doesn't get paid enough. He begins walking away with a small wave goodbye as he quickly leaves the manor

Bruce looks at Alfred as he asks what the paper was. It gets handed to him as a confused look crosses Bruce's face because when the hell did he sign adoption papers

Alfred explains he had messaged Bruce's lawyer earlier hand had it drawn up that afternoon. The signature was easy to get because he had a stamp for emergency reasons

Dick can't help himself as he takes another picture for the scene and posts it on the Bruce's personal account with the caption 'He adopted the kid and didn't even know it'

Dick and Jason laugh to one another as they whisper to themselves about how Giggles is going to loose it when they find out who Batman really was

[gallusrostromegalus]

You ohhhandedly mentioned tessai livong through ww2 and… wow thats true there were a lot of characters that got a first row seat to both conflicts, even if only the second was really impactful on japans history. Does urahara, yoruichi, tessai, the vizored or any of the shinigami have any specific feelings on ww2/the nuclear bombs? I know its a wild fucking question but it literally just occurred to me and i cant stop thinking about it.

Yeah WW2 is an entire 5-chapter arc in the fic because apparently Kubo is from Hiroshima, and Karakura town is based on his memories growing up there. Stuff that happens during that arc:

The Soul Society's sole warning that something catastrophic might be coming is the arrival of an irradiated and enraged Coyote spirit from the Trinidad test site. It's up to Newly-appointed captain Komamura to calm it down and explain what happened, and Mayuri is able to work out that atomic weapons are real from it's descriptions. He gives Soul Society about a month before the humans drop one on a city.

Unfortunately, he's correct.

***

Urahara and the Visoreds use the fact that they're already dead to mitigate some of the damage from the bombing by walking into the epicenter and shoving carbon rods into the most radioactive points, stemming much of the radiation damage, but there's nothing they can do for the initial wave of destruction.

It involves going through a new gigai every trip and learning what if feels like to have the flesh actually melt off your bones, but Hirako Shinji and the other Visored are no cowards, least of all about Hard and Dirty Work.

Tessai makes Ururu and Jinta out of spare parts from Urahara's Gigai experiments to house a heavily damage Kitsune and Tanuki spirit pair from a shrine that was destroyed. Ururu is the Tankuki, and the older one- Jinta seems a bit more 'organic' because Tessai learned a lot making his sister, and because as a Kitsune, he's a better actor.

***

Soul Society is in major trouble though.

with the sudden influx of souls- first from the bombing, but then from the radiation sickness and the famine that followed, the living and spirit worlds are in danger of becoming unbalanced.

It's a Major Crisis!

Fortunately for them, people with sociopathy tend to operate really well during Crises, and I realized the reason Mayuri hasn't been fired or killed by the time Ichigo shows up is that when shit hits the fan, Mayuri's lack of emotional response to the suffering of others means he can buckle down and fucking DELIVER.

Expansions to the pocket dimension that the queue of incoming souls is housed in? He didn't sleep for two weeks to get it done on time, but there was more than enough room when the bomb dropped and for the few months after as casualties continued.

Emergency rations for all these incoming factory workers that know nothing about farming? Behold, Nutritionally complete meals that you can eat right out of the box! And smaller, friendlier ones for the kiddies!

Hell, the 12th division even makes instructional propaganda videos about how safe and tasty these new foods are, featuring The Grand Clown Himself, and distribution centers featuring his likeness, so Mayuri enjoys a peculiar popularity in the Rukongai, not unlike an off-brand and sometimes educational Krusty The Clown.

Just ah. Stop asking questions about the ingredients list.

***

"I'm not fucking killing civillians." Says Kenpachi when Yamamoto begins to bring up the historical method that the Shinigami have used to balance out sudden influxes of souls from the living world.

"Oh?" Yamamoto glares at him. "You have a better idea?"

"What's them big fuckers that come outta tears sometimes? Hundred feet tall, black, bird faces?" He asks, waving as he tries to remember the names.

"...Menos Grande?" asks Ukitake, who has gotten remarkably good at interpreting for the man next to him at meetings.

"Yeah!" Zaraki grins, patting his six-foot-tall colleague on the head like a small child. "You said they're like... combination creatures of a thousand souls each right?"

"Zaraki is correct." Pipes up Tousen, who is also extremely eager to not murder civilians and even more eager to absolutely fuck up the army of Menos Aizen has been gathering in Hueco Mundo. "-It wouldn't be *easy* but dispatching approximately Five hundred Menos in the next week seems much more doable and much, much more morally sound than killing five hundred thousand civillians. Sir."

Kaname can feel the curse nails on his back starting to bleed from Aizen's glare but he presses on.

"-There appears to be a significant population of them gathered on the far eastern edge of Hueco Mundo. It would probably take most of the 11th Division's forces but-"

"IKKAKU!" Zaraki is already bellowing out the door to his lieutenant. "TELL EVERYONE TO PACK AN EXTRA PAIR OF PANTIES, WE'RE GOING ON A HOLLOW HUNT!"

There is a distant but enthusiastic whoop form Ikkaku in reply.

"An excursion into Hueco Mundo is exceptionally dangerous." Unohana notes, voice placid as he returns to the table.

"-and? I don't do this job because it's safe 'n' easy." Zaraki shrugs.

Her neutral expression softens just a bit into a small, affectionate and perhaps ever-so-slightly lascivious smile. "May I suggest that a detachment of the 4th Division accompany the 11th? It won't make the work easier, but it will mitigate some of the risk."

Yamamoto groans, aware that the decision has been made for him.

"Fine." He grunts. "Take a detachment of the Ninth too, you can use that newfangled radiodar whatsit to keep me updated."

"Pardon?" Mumbles Kaname, slightly woozy from blood loss.

His circulatory situation is not helped when an illusion-blind-to-the-blood Zaraki grabs him about the middle and starts carrying him off under his arm in exactly the direction the 9th and 11th are not like a particularly bewildered purse Chihuahua.

***

Aizen... almost strays from his path.

The Hogyoku is slow and tiresome, his first plan to barrage Karakura with Menos to create the Oken is being trashed and actually being forced to work his job of Rukongai Management is- Well, it's reminding him just why he started this quest to Dethrone God.

What loving creator would make an afterlife of squalor, where the 'lucky' are cursed to outlive everyone they know and love? Not one worth worshiping, surely.

But actually being out here, setting up emergency food distribution, implementing the latest in civil engineering from the newly arrived and seeing it immediately improve the quality of life, uniting families and... actually helping people? it's making him question his path. Perhaps- Perhaps God is not some uncaring regent on a distant throne. Perhaps God is something that lives in all souls, a kindness and goodwill towards one's fellow man, and to spread the will of a loving creator, one must Act to Enact God's Will...

Gin Panics.

He has not spent the last 300-odd years dangling the Hogyoku in front of Aizen, stuffing him full of spiritual energy to feed to the machine that generates reality like he was fattening up a goose for Pate, only to have him give up his quest for divinity NOW.

He's gonna have to do something drastic.

He's gonna have to convince Aizen he was right all along, and that he needs to keep using the Hogyoku.

He's going to need to use Aizen's own Illusions against him, and convince Aizen that the souls of the citizens of the rukongai aren't worth playing a Benevolent God for. That the whole thing needs to come out and be replaced.

Sure, it's a dick move

but those are his specialty.

***

It's the night before the 11th and the two detachments are supposed to leave for Hueco Mundo, and Yamamoto's been doing some thinking.

He is also in Zaraki's quarters at midnight sharp. "Captain-General." Nods Unohana, pausing mid-activity to acknowledge him. "Bruh." Zaraki grunts to indicate they were busy. "I need to borrow Zaraki for an hour or so, and then you may continue." he says, and then steps back outside so the man can get untied and dressed.

"This better be good old man, I know you haven't been married for a few centuries but REALLY-" Zaraki grumbles, emerging and putting his sandals on. "Don’t worry, it’ll take twenty minutes tops, all you have to do is stand behind me and don’t hide your rage." Yamamoto explains. "-We'’re going to go see the central 46." Zaraki pauses mid-sandal, slowly looking up at him with an intrigued arch to his brow. "Yes, it’s forbidden." Yamamoto says, not tearing his gaze away from the moon above them. "-But I've received reports that the Central 46 has acquired blueprints of the... Device. Used in the living world earlier this month and I'm nipping this at the damn bud." Zaraki grins, and finishes putting his sandals on.

The Central 46 are alerted to the Presence of Yamamoto and Zaraki by the main gate to their district being kicked through the wall of the council chambers.

"Hello, Sages and Wise Councilors of the Soul Society!" The Old Man greets them as he steps through the hole he just made, and The Barbarian squeezing through after, sword casually over his shoulder. "Well isn't this a surprise, everyone here in a full meeting at One in the Morning on a Teusday!"

"Wh-What is the meaning of this?" one of the head councilmen sputters, mustache bristling. "Shinigami are forbidden form this place, I'll have you both execu-!"

"Shut up." Yamamoto glares, and sparks fly from the corner of his eye. The hem of his Haori is starting to smolder and singe as well as he approaches the table the councilors are crowded around the blueprints from the living world.

"Now, we are all good and honorable people here." Yamamoto says, casually waving a hand in what would normally be a placating gesture but now only made his sleeve flicker as Ryujin Jakka grew hungrier. "-But I've been around long enough to know how Power corrupts."

"And we've all been exposed to a new, horrific level of Power."

"Oh, of course, you would never! It's unthinkable to sink to such a level!"

"...but it's been a few weeks. The initial shock has faded, and you're starting to understand the full toll of the destruction." he explains, strolling up, the diamond insignia on his back spreading across his shoulders as the Haori singes. Behind him, Zaraki is following with an unpleasantly carnivorous stroll, yellow eye lazily moving from face to face, taking stock of all those present. "...and you are perhaps developing a new standard of devastation and suffering to wish upon your enemies."

There is some muttering, some protesting, and worse, some agreeing. They are silenced by a sudden electric crackle of Energy from Zaraki.

"I’m just here to tell you all-" Yamamoto continues, unperturbed. Or perhaps so perturbed he's warped all the way around to a deep, ruthless peace.

"If I hear any ONE of you has taken steps to develop a weapon like this-" he points a finger at the blueprints, which singe and then burn, a low, slow flame that reduces them completely to ash.

"-I’m going to kill all of you."

"Actually," he explains, as the blueprints finish burning and the table catches as well, fire blooming and crackling, lighting him from beneath. "I’m going to kill all of you and your families. By which I mean, I’m figuring out who all your ancestors were going back Five generations, Kill them, and kill all their descendants."

The table burns, and the floor is threatening to catch, but nobody can move to ring the fire alarm or grab a bucket of water.

"-Because that’s the kind of indiscriminate destruction these things cause." he explains. "It's a damn shame to say this, but this is the first time we've been able to settle whole families in the same town- because five, six, even seven generations of families, from great-great grandmother to the newest infants were burnt together in an instant."

"So if you want to wield that kind of destruction, you best be prepared to deal with those kinds of consequences." he growls, and suddenly sweeps his hand over the fire, which snuffs out immediately.

Slowly he turns to go, and regards Zaraki behind him.

"Oh, and just in case any of you had thoughts of hastening my retirement in regards to this matter-" he speaks up, and points to Zaraki "-Near as I can tell, this asshole is immortal and indestructible, so if I happen to be dead, he'll do it for me, won't you?"

"Yes, sir." Zaraki Nods, eye fixed on the head councilor, committing his face to memory, blade and crackling eagerly.

"-and he's nowhere near as speedy and clean a killer as I am, so I suggest you don't test either of us." Yamamoto grins, and Ryujin Jakka can't help but flicker off his brow for emphasis.

"Goodnight, and go fuck yourselves." Yamamoto bows, and exits through the same hole he entered.

The walk back to the 11th is largely silent, but Yamamot can feel the pleased-yet-curious thrum of reiatsu from Zaraki.

"Question, boss-" he suddenly speaks as they approach the 11th.

"You're not supposed to question orders, Zaraki." He sighs. He'll make a proper shinigami out of him. Eventually.

"...Request for clarification, Boss-" Zaraki tries again, and Yamamoto nods. "-Why me?"

Yamamoto arches an overgrown brow at him.

"Not complainin'-" Zaraki explains, pointedly looking up at the moon and scratching his neck in deferment. "-But Byakuya's got more sway with them and Gin's definitely better at terrifying first impressions."

"Hm." Yamamoto nods. "It's in the follow-up, not the impression, you see."

"I do not." Zaraki says. For all his faults and frustrations, Zaraki sure keeps Yamamoto on his toes about not being lazy and actually explaining himself.

"-I am very serious about you killing them and their descendants if they ever think about making one of those devices." he sighs and Zaraki nods, waving a hand for him to continue. "-So I picked the Shinigami most invested in a peaceful future to make sure my orders would be carried out."

Zaraki still looks confused.

"You're my only captain with children, Zaraki." Yamamoto explains. "I know you only give half a rat's ass about the court guard, but I've seen what you'll do for Yachiru."

Zaraki nods understanding now, and a few more paces of silence pass between them.

"...Thank you, Sir." Zaraki mutters, bowing his head and using the honorific with genuine intent for the first time since Yamamoto had known him. "-For understanding."

"Thank you, Captain Zaraki." Yamamoto nodded slightly, stopping before the gate to the 11th. "-For understanding as well."

"-Now get back to Captain Unohana before she schedules some sort of blood test of a thousand needles for me!" Yamamoto grunted, prodding at Zaraki with his cane, and the man didn't need to be told twice.

[actualbird]

who in the nxx yells “THERE’S A BUG” and who removes the bug, and how?

HELP HAHAHAKHVFAHSF THIS IS A LOVELY PROMPT, THANK U FOR THIS!!!

those who yell "THERES A BUG": marius and mc

now im not saying both of them are particularly squeamish, no no, they can definitely keep it cool when the situation Calls For It. that being said, seeing a bug in the nxx meeting room on a slow day isnt exactly the most high stakes of situations, so the most High Stakes Element remains to be whatever bug they see

mc just doesnt like bugs, theyre creepy theyre crawly and she doesnt trust anything that can dart out of her line of vision in the blink of an eye

marius also doesnt like bugs and because of his upbringing, he did not get to see very many of them growing up. which means every time he Did see a Bug Intruder, it's like a Category 5 Drama Moment

the moment they see the bug, theyre announcing it LOUDLY to everybody else in the room while also getting up to stand on some chairs

those who dont yell "THERES A BUG" but does look at the bug and track its every movement while sitting still like a statue hoping the bug doesnt notice him, as if bugs operate on some kind of t-rex knowledge: artem

let's rewind a bit. before marius and mc saw the bug, artem saw it first. and he just

didnt say anything about it

artem.....Also Does Not Like Bugs. but he also also doesnt like being loud about things he doesnt like so he just Sits There, so still you'd think he fucking died, and he hopes the bug mistakes him for some kind of inanimate man-shaped furniture and avoids him due to sheer disinterest

it doesnt avoid him.

it probably crawls or flies very close to him a few times the only thing that stops him from screaming "THERES A BUG" is his self-control thats as hard as cast-iron skillet

it's fine though because marius and mc spot it and sound the alarm

(thank god)

those who remove the bug: luke and vyn

luke and vyn are the ones who will both 1) be completely unbothered by the bug and 2) have to bring it out

the reason for luke is obvious, he's had wilderness survival training and probably had to eat bugs like in an episode of Man VS Wild to survive on an uninhabited island, so hes REALLY past any squeamishness with bugs. in fact, if mc said the word, luke would grab the bug and crush it with his bare hands

and vyn is a gardener!!! bugs are APLENTY in the garden, so he sees them not as malevolent but as important creatures in a healthy ecosystem. the bug probably got in from vyn's garden, actually, since nxx hq is on his property

and thus

The Timeline Of Events When a Bug Appears In The NXX HQ Meeting Room

bug: //crawls in

artem: //sees it, soul leaves his body for a bit and he petrifies himself as a defense mechanism

mc: why did artem go so still

marius: i dont know, maybe hes rebooting?

mc: dont be mean!

marius: im not being mea---FUCK

mc: what?

marius: THERES A BUG

mc: theres a wha---THERES A BUG

marius and mc: //immediately moving to stand on the couch

artem: //still Not Moving, hoping that mc and marius' sudden movements attract it

bug: //flexes wings open and closed

mc: NNNNO NO NO NO

marius: STOP DOING THAT MOTHERFUCKER

mc: NONONNONONONNNONONNOONONOONOO

marius: AAAAAAAAAA

vyn and luke, coming back in from where they were in the file room: ???

mc: THERES A BUG THERES A BUG

luke: oh. do you want me to kill it?

mc: NO!!

marius: YES!!!!!!

artem: i havent moved in 20 minutes

mc: JUST BRING IT OUT

luke: dead or alive?

mc: ALIVE

marius: DEAD

vyn, while they were all conversing: //gently coaxes the bug onto his palm and lets it out through the window

vyn's rationale here was that luke was doing a great job at handling (i.e. distracting) the People, so he went ahead and took care of the Bug. the bug will not be returning to the nxx meeting room because it was quite cold with no soil and also VERY loud

[writefightandflightclub]

So like what if you’re Javi P’s co-worker and you get drawn into going undercover with him at some seedy bar, posing as his… let’s say lady friend for the night.

And you always dress practically, you know? In case you need to give chase, but tonight you’re in a skimpy little dress that makes Javi’s eyes pop.

And at some stage in the night, to lend credence to the facade -or maybe just because he wants to, he isn’t sure - Javi pulls you onto his lap. Your ass perched across his sturdy thighs. The hem of your silly little dress riding almost all the way up, barely covering you. His splayed hand bracing at the small of your back, smoothing up and down, itching to slide down to feel the globes of your ass.

Your hot lips sliding down the column of his throat now to lend credence to the facade - or maybe because you want to, he’s not sure - and he thinks about you tasting the sweat on him but you’re not stopping. Not stopping and he never loses his cool but… damn.

You nip at his earlobe with your teeth before you whisper your astute observations of the scene to him. Never wavering even as you do this, your breath fanning warm against the shell of his ear and he’s convinced he can’t help it as his free hand slides on to your bare thigh, fingers sinking into your flesh and driving up, slow, towards the hem of your dress. His skin is buzzing, all warm from your touch as your hands wander over him too, palm smoothing at the bare expanse of his chest beneath the deep “v” of his shirt. Your scent all over him, his jeans tightening as you wriggle on his lap, curling further into him with his thighs bracing you… and he almost forgets that you’re pretending. That he’s pretending. This is the most secure, straightforward cover he’s ever had and he realises it’s so easy to want you.

He almost forgets why you’re here at all, honestly. That is, until your languid, honeyed movements turn suddenly cool and decisive. Until you whip your head around to signal to another operative in the room that the target is moving out. Until you stand too, grabbing your jacket and concealed weapon and moving out, high heels be damned.

But Javi… Fuck. Javi looks down to his lap, still warm from the press and weight of you on him, and he notices… the wet patch on his jeans. Holy shit. Your wetness on his jeans, where your heat had rested over his sturdy thigh. His arousal swells painfully against the seam of his blue jeans at the thought of it. The thought that being close to him like this had turned you on. Enough to soak through your panties. Enough to darken the denim and leave him a reminder that maybe you weren’t pretending at all. All that for him? So wet that you’ve soaked him, even as he’s sure you would have tried with every scrap you had to resist it?

“You coming?” you hiss from the doorway, and the sudden swell of his arousal makes it hard to stand - but he does. He stands because he’s motivated to wrap this op up quickly. He’s suddenly very motivated, in fact. You step out into the alley together, and you’re stumbling and giggling a little, hooking your arm into his - to add further credence to the facade. Making eyes and him and God.

Javi pins you against the wall. Positions close enough to the mark outside that you can still observe the interaction. Do your due recon. You won’t miss anything, he knows it, and so he focusses on making things look… as convincing as possible.

It’s easy. He pins you to the wall with his body, hips slanting towards you. He tilts your head and his lips hungrily meet your pulse point. He tongues languidly at the taste of your perfume. Across the ridges and cords of your neck as the act punches a breath from your lungs. He works you until no-one could possibly doubt the scene before them. It works him up too, so much so that if you asked him why he was here at all tonight, his first thought would be that he came here for you.

“You want me to take you home tonight?” he purrs, and you offer him a perfectly pitched coy smile as you sling the loop of your arms around his neck. Always on your game. Still watching. Still working. Fuck, you’re a dream, he thinks, and the wet patch is burning a hole in his thigh. He wants to feel it for himself with his fingers, right here. Has never needed anything more.

“Peña, they’re gone,” you impress, your voice trembling with a brazen want which sounds every bit authentic - despite it all. “You can drop the act now, huh?”

“I know,” Javi breathes. “I know they’re gone.” He didn’t miss it. Didn’t fail to hear the thrum of the motorcycle and the sudden hush which has fallen over the alley. He’s definitely not pretending any longer. “So. How about it, darling? Do you want me to take you home tonight?”

You blink at him from beneath your lashes - pupils lust-blown- as Javi kicks your legs open. Shoves his thigh up against your heat as your bare, warm legs bracket him. “Or if you really can’t wait…?”

“What gives you that idea?” you protest, stubborn and proud as ever, even as you grind yourself down on his leg, angling your hips further towards him. “This is just work, Javi… I mean...” Your eyes turn big and searching then, in a rare moment of vulnerability. Despite himself, it makes Javi wonder if that’s how you’ll look the first time his cock spears you, as you wonder for a second if he really is too much. “…Isn’t it?”

He offers you a smug, lopsided smile. “You soaked through my jeans, darling.”

You shake your head softly, more of your weight sinking into his hold as you go even more limp against the wall. “Fuck, I’m-“

“-Don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart. It’s okay.” He dips his lips towards the shell of your ear. “You know? I wouldn’t even mind if you soaked my sheets instead.”

He grabs the meat of your hips in his broad hands. Angles you down to slide your heat against his thigh. The way your eyes flutter closed, followed by a honeyed moan, sends a zip of pleasure straight to his cock. He could drink down those noises all night - and for breakfast. He could have you for breakfast.

“Can I feel you?” he begs, his fingertips lingering at the hem of your dress.

You bite down on your lower lip, eyes darting around the alleyway. “Not here, Javi.”

“No?”

“No. Take me home.”

Reluctantly, he moves away from you, and he groans as he once more looks down at his jeans to see the wet patch has grown.

He is arrested there for a moment, and yet when he looks back up you are already waiting at the door of his vehicle.

“You coming?” You ask him for the second time tonight.

Finally, he finds some game, from somewhere. “Not as many times as you will be.”

Just like earlier, he’s more than confident he can get the job done… it’s just that this time, there won’t be any need at all for pretending.

[piratefishmama]

Forgiven Not Forgotten | Part 7

Never let it be said that the Harringtons knew how to go small. They didn’t. The quaint little two bed they’d been living in was always going to be temporary if Steve came home. Even if it was now… technically theirs. It was a nice house, perfect for many a small family, which technically they were.

But they were also… filthy stinking rich.

The Harringtons didn’t really know how to go and stay small. Which is why by the following weekend, Eddie’s release from hospital looming upon them and the two bed house feeling more and more cramped by the day, they already had a cash offer in place on a five bedroom estate in Bloomington.

Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a finished basement games room, just under eight acres of land, a pool, and an extra little pool house outfitted as a detached bungalow on the property.

The little house they’d lived in… given it was theirs, well. They had no real plans for it yet. Selling it on was a potential, it was too far from the estate to even contemplate handing the keys to one of the families linked to theirs through their children’s shared trauma, although that’d be a nice gesture on their part, the idea of separating their kids after such an ordeal?

Nope. They’d clung to each other. Kept each other alive. They needed each other.

One of the reasons they even chose the bigger property was because “It’s big enough for you all to be there.” That’s what Lynda had told Steve when he’d asked about it. “It’s not going to happen for another couple of weeks, so the house is still going to be a little cramped with everyone in it, but…”

“We have no intentions of separating you from your family, Steven.” John finished for her, nodding over Steve’s shoulder to the multiple sets of eyes watching them. “Like your mother said, what we have now is too cramped, this new place will have plenty of room for everyone.”

“And… what about when their parents turn up?” Because it was a when, not an if. “Just gonna go back to an empty house?” They were operating on when. Nevermind that they’d never seen their parents get out of Hawkins. Nevermind that the only parent they knew for certain was alive and well outside of Joyce and Hopper, was Karen Wheeler, Ted having put himself between his kids and a Demogorgon during the early days and hadn’t come out as the victor. It didn’t matter that they’d seen horrors beyond anything a child should have to witness.

The kids needed to operate on when.

“Then we’ll help them find homes in the area, but until then, the house will be… a home base of sorts. A comfortable starting point for all of you so you’re not too far away from each other, it’ll never be an empty house, Steven. I know it might look like we’re just spending money for the sake of it but… it’s not like that anymore.” They weren’t doing that anymore. They’d found a better way than being away from home all the time. John worked from a home office and delegated important tasks and jobs to others to free up his time, and Lynda decided she wanted to be at home.

They were just glad Steve was allowing them to just decide to be there for him all of a sudden. He didn’t have to.

“…Forgive me if I still doubt that.” No amount of tearful apologies could erase all that history “But thanks, for… for thinking of us. It’s true, we kinda stuck together like glue after Mr Wheeler…” he trailed off. After they’d gotten Karen and Holly out of that house while Ted held back that shaking door, huge, clawed fingers tearing through wood. He still remembered Holly’s screams, still remembered Karen crying, begging them to go back as Nancy and Mike dragged her out, Holly running straight to Steve. “We were never far apart from each other.” It’d be weird without them, unsettling when the dust finally settled. When parents returned to claim their kids.

“And you wont be.” John placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, firm, squeezing it in comforting reassurance. “You won’t be.”

~~

“Aaaand this is your room.” Had it not been for the fact that Eddie had been in a coma for the last god only knows, where he could, with rules, conjure ridiculous shit, he’d have probably assumed he was still out.

He had a room. In what was essentially. A mansion. But he’d never seen it before, so he wasn’t still in his funky little void because he wouldn’t have been able to conjure it.

Only what he’d seen, only places he’d been.

He had his own room. Bigger than his old one at the trailer because of course it was. Currently empty of personal belongings, void of personality, but Steve was holding boxes. Boxes with stuff in them, rolled up tubes of paper, stuff wrapped in newspapers, and he was setting those boxes down one by one inside the room. “…What’s in those?”

“Shit we saved from the trailer, it’s not much but… it’s something.” Eddie silently turned to just. Stare at him. Brows furrowed, confusion so evident Steve had to ask “what?”

“…How long has it been since I died, Steve?” He had to ask again, just to be sure of something, even if it was a weird question to ask.

“Bout two years, why?”

“… And in that time, Hawkins basically ate shit, right?”

“Yup, where’s this going?”

“How’d you save my stuff for that long? Why did you save my stuff for that long? Shit couldn’t have been easy to keep safe, right? So… why?” Steve fell silent, his jaw shifting, lips pursing, visibly going through all the possible reasons he could have saved that stuff, all the reasons why he would have saved that stuff, all the potential excuses, the boy would be terrible at poker.

He settled on shrugging his shoulders.

“Because I did. Because I could. Like I said, it’s not much.” It was so much. Not quantity wise, no… Steve was right there wasn’t much in those boxes, probably why Steve could carry multiple at a time but it meant so much. Steve obviously wasn’t going to go into the why’s or the how’s with him though. He was going to brush them away, without answers. “We saved some mugs, there’s some posters in here, uhh, I got a bunch of your tapes and your deck, I wish I could say I saved your guitars but… I’m sorry man, it was just too risky carting around something that could make noise. I think… they might still be there but—”

“It’s fine, Steve… this—this is way more than I could have asked for.” He could always get a new guitar, eventually. It’d mean saving up somehow, or using some of the hush money that the government had promised him for signing, he was planning on using that to find Wayne though.

It’d been over a week, the hospital had slowly been cleared of survivors, the Sinclair’s were the only parents who’d made it thus far, having been staying with Sue’s sister a few towns over doing the exact same thing as the Harringtons. Waiting. Hoping. Praying for news on their kids, any news. Anything.

They’d taken the Harrington’s offer to stay in the converted pool house with Karen until they could get housing arranged, the kids staying in the main house with everyone else.

“Yeah well… we’ll sort you out a new one eventually. Can’t leave the bard without his instrument, right?” Eddie’s wide eyes were on him again, a beaming smile spreading across his lips, dimpling his cheeks, stretching the scar tissue on his jaw, and Steve had to look away, he had to, because otherwise he just might fall again, and he couldn’t… he couldn’t make that mistake twice.

“Be still my beating heart, was that a D&D reference, Harrington?” He could feel the warmth seeping into his cheeks at the attention, as Eddie leaned in a little closer, got into his space, it’d been so long since someone had paid him any attention. Even if it meant nothing to Eddie, even if he was just being silly, be still his own beating heart.

“Maybe. Now get to unpacking your shit.” He put the last of the boxes down on the bed, purposefully turning away from Eddie to hide his reddening face, to hide what he knew Eddie had never wanted to see. “We’ll be heading out into town in an hour to find us all some new clothes, maybe some new stuff for the rooms too. Hop to it.”

“You’re not gonna help lil ol me unpack? I just got out of hospital!” Eddie called after him as Steve made to leave the room.

“With a clean bill of health! You can manage a few boxes!” And he was gone. Running away. Like a coward.