#because I don’t feel like I’m getting enough of a chance to properly wind down and end my day on a good relaxed note | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jeanniebug623 · 9 months

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🕸️🕷️ Weaving the Web 🕷️🕸️

Chapter 1: The First Crack

Spider couldn’t be happier to be away from the sky people’s monstrosity of Bridgehead City. He was stretched out on a soft, mossy branch. The wind was cooling the sweat sticking to his skin and small patches of sun moved across his freshly painted stripes as the leaves shifted above him. He didn’t do as good a job as he normally would. The reincarnated goon squad he was leading through the forest never gave him enough time to properly repaint them, but they weren’t the issue this time.

He had a pounding headache. It started as just a tiny prickling sensation on the right side, more towards the forehead above the eye, but now it was pulsing through his entire skull. The pressure from his mask was making it worse but it’s not like he could take it off. He was taking slow breaths to combat the growing pain in his head to the sound of Kiri’s voice counting. He was close to smiling at the thought of his best friend when he was harshly brought back to reality…

“Kid!” Quaritch barked from the ground down below. The reincarnated father figure looked pissed. Hands on his hips and glaring up at Spider with his ears back and tail whipping back and forth. “I distinctly remember telling you to stay in eyesight.”

Spider let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. He kind of regretted it because even the eye roll made his headache worse. He closed his eyes and stayed sprawled out on the branch, “What’s your problem, old man? I didn’t run off. Not my fault you’re all slow as fuck…”

Quaritch growled low in his throat. So, it was going to be one of those days? The moody, obnoxious version of his genetic predecessor’s teenage son was who they had to deal with. Just that morning, the kid had been light-hearted and joking around. Fantastic…

“Watch your mouth, kid.” Quaritch scolded, “You may think you’re grown but cursing doesn’t make you sound older. Just makes you sound like a punk. And it’s either ‘sir’ or ‘colonel’, you read me?”

Spider didn’t say anything. He just laid on the branch, his feet hanging off and swinging as he ignored Quaritch.

“You read me, boy?” Quaritch repeated, louder and angrier.

This made the teen say something in Na’vi, probably another curse word, as he sat up and glared down at Quaritch. He held up his hands in mock surrender and spoke with a fake exaggerated submissive tone, “I read you loud and clear, sir, wouldn’t want that old school ass whippin’ you keep pretending is a threat.”

“You willing to take that chance?” Quaritch snarled. Spider went quiet at this but still had that antagonizing look on his face. “Get down here. Now.”

Reluctantly, the boy listened. He was grumbling in Na’vi the whole way down and dropped down the last few feet. But something threw him off and he wobbled, putting a hand on the tree trunk before he fell. The impact of landing made his head flash with pain and his free hand clutched the side of his head. He felt a large hand catch his elbow as he did this.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Spider snapped, smacking Quaritch’s hand away. But the motion caused him to spin too far and land his back against the tree. He was glaring at the recom with complete malice.

Despite the lecture about cursing he just gave and obvious hostility, Quaritch couldn’t care less as an instinctual fear rushed him when he saw the human boy almost collapse. He held out his hands placatingly and spoke softly, “Easy, kid, easy…you good?”

Spider looked up at the recom as the extra head pains subsided. Quaritch did look genuinely concerned. He exhaled slowly and answered quietly as he looked away, feeling a bit bad for the way he snapped at him but too proud to apologize. “Yea…I’m good. Sir.”

Quaritch nodded, not completely convinced the boy was as good as he claimed but didn’t push it when the rest of the team started to arrive at the location.

“Great, the rest of the skxwang squad survived…” Spider said, crossing his arms in a huff as he leaned against the tree.

“You can’t get rid of us that easily, kiddo.” Wainfleet said with a chuckle when the teen rolled his eyes and shook his head. Spider had said that Na’vi word enough times for them to know it was an insult. But he was still just a kid, so the squad took his teenage angst with a grain of salt.

Quaritch checked his watch then looked to the group, “Less than an hour until eclipse. We’ll call it a day and set up camp.”

The colonel received dutiful responses from his team while Spider just plopped himself off to the side and watched. His argument from day one had been that he didn’t bring in any of the gear so why should he have to help them set up? But on more than one occasion, he did assist unprompted by telling them to set up shelter in a place with more coverage when he knew a flash storm was coming. Or which trees were better to anchor the tarp to since they almost tied it down to one that secretes a defensive paralytic sap shortly after contact.

But he wasn’t helping this time. Or speaking, for that matter. Spider just sat on the ground against a root, his knees up and leaning his head in his right hand. It felt like he had insects crawling around in his skull. He massaged his temple when really he wanted to claw it open to alleviate the itch at the source.

“Spider, are you alright?” a voice interrupted his daze. It was the medic. Ja, if Spider remembered correctly? He knew all their names but didn’t bother to remember which face they went with. Why bother? Spider wasn’t planning to stay with these people all that long…if only he could figure out how to ditch the damn tracker in his mask.

“Yea…” Spider grumbled. He didn’t like any of the recoms, for obvious reasons, but he only had major issues with Miles Quaritch. The colonel took him on as his responsibility, so the others didn’t engage with or scold him much.

“You have a headache?” Ja prodded. The medic paused gathering kindling for a fire, despite how many times Spider told them they didn’t need them at night. All sky people, even the recoms, were all the same.

“Wow, good diagnosis…is that all it takes to be a healer on Earth?” Spider said back in a heavily sarcastic tone.

“Hey!” Quaritch snapped, pointing at him from where he was helping anchor the tarp, “Show some respect or I’ll teach it to you.”

Spider wrapped his arms around his knees and glared at the ground, going quiet.

“Just tell me if you do, alright?” Ja said softer. Good thing he was the medic for the squad because Quaritch had terrible bedside manners. “I have medication that can help.”

“Human meds?” Spider asked curiously, looking at Ja with just his eyes.

“Yes.” Ja said with a nod, “You’re human. Needed to be prepared for anything.”

Spider grumbled a ‘thanks’ and Ja nodded again before going back to collecting firewood. It was such a boy scout thing to say. Jake and Norm had told the kids stories about when they were young and both had been in troops. Which Spider and the Sully boys compared to their normal upbringing. The thought that humans didn’t learn to make fires, track, archery, and anything that was part of Na’vi life was just strange. Lo’ak really got himself in trouble that day when he called the humans ‘pussies’ for not knowing that stuff…which led to a long investigation to where the boys learned that word.

He didn’t think he would fall asleep, but Spider definitely lost time. He opened his eyes with a jolt to see it was already dark, the fire was lit, and the recoms were sitting around eating their poor excuse for Na’vi diet rations. Glancing down, he saw his own sad excuse for dinner in front of him with a canteen of water.

“Did our little baby boy enjoy his nap before dinner?” Zdinarsk joked when she saw him wake up from across the clearing. Everyone except Quaritch shared a laugh. The colonel was too busy looking at Spider with concern deep in his eyes.

“I wasn’t sleeping…” Spider growled quietly as he tore open the powdered meal and added water. These meal packs were disgusting but he was also starving. When he came to a little more, he’d go see if he could find some safe fruit or greens to eat.

“You sure as hell weren’t awake either.” Quaritch said as he got up from his place with the squad and moved to sit next to the boy. “Had to check for a pulse.”

Spider looked up at Quaritch. Confused as all hell. Was he joking or did someone actually touch him and he didn’t wake up? He’d always been a heavy sleeper; it was hard not to become one given all the sounds of Hell’s Gate and then High Camp at night. But surely he would have woken up if someone touched him to check his pulse.

“I know it’s not your favorite but eat up, kid.” Quaritch said, laying his arm across the glowing moss-covered root behind Spider’s head.

“Yea…sure…” Spider agreed, massaging the bag of powdered rations and water until it turned into an unappetizing sludge. He let out a breath, took in a big one, then slid his mask up to tip a mouthful of the passable sustenance straight from the metallic pouch. He grimaced at the taste as he replaced his mask. “...gross…”

Quaritch chuckled and nodded in agreement, “Can’t argue with that. But it’ll keep you going.”

Spider sighed and slumped back against the root, holding the pouch in his lap. He scratched at his right temple again. By Eywa, this headache would not go away! A few minutes went by as he and the colonel sat in silence, watching the rest of the recoms talk and laugh amongst themselves before it was time to sleep and start patrols.

“Hey.” Quaritch said gently, tapping Spider’s shoulder, “Finish that. And then I think you should hit the hay.”

Spider stared at him with a blank stare. Quaritch used a lot of metaphors and Earth references he’d never heard before...

“It means go to sleep…” Quaritch said, explaining the expression. He got a normal Spider eye roll and the boy didn’t comply. He sighed and his ears went back as he continued, “Don’t give me that shit, you need to eat and sleep.”

“Why do you care?” Spider asked, sounding annoyed and turning halfway to stare up at the colonel with narrow eyes.

“Ya know, if you have to ask then you clearly didn’t have anyone lookin’ out for you in your younger years.” Quaritch deduced. What little they knew about the son of Miles Quaritch and Paz Socorro was that he was orphaned after the assault on the Tree of Souls, too young for cryosleep so he stayed on Pandora, and raised by traitorous humans and savage Na’vi.

“I had plenty of people looking out for me, thanks.” Spider growled and glared back at the fire.

“Oh yea, I can see it now…” Quaritch said, holding out the arm that wasn’t behind Spider’s head and waving his hand, “Human boy raised by traitors to humanity because he was the stray that got left behind.”

“I’m a stray because of you.” Spider snapped, not looking up.

“You’re a stray because of your FATHER. Not me, remember?” Quaritch said coolly, looking at the boy’s angry profile. “Don’t worry, kid, I’ll make sure you get sorted out properly once we find Sully.”

Spider scoffed with a laugh, “You’re not going to find Jake.”

“He might be runnin’ but we’ll find him, kid. Maybe you’ll get one last reunion since he clearly didn’t care to come get you himself.” Quaritch said.

The teen’s hands tightened on the ration bag, crinkling and causing it to almost spill out the top. Quaritch stared down at him for a second then cleared his throat.

“Just focus on eating and being a good guide. Leave Jake Sully to me…” Quaritch said, his patience trying to get the kid to eat his damn meal wearing thin.

“You’re nothing like Jake.” Spider started. Clearly the kid wasn’t ready to give it up yet. “Jake is a leader, a REAL leader. He’s Olo’eyktan and Toruk Makto. He has the respect of the Na’vi. A loyalty you would never understand.”

“Loyalty, my ass…he took advantage of some native folktale. If they knew how he got to where he is now, he wouldn’t have any loyalties. ESPECIALLY yours.” Quaritch said as he educated the boy. Spider probably only knew the false narrative of the big bad RDA and the poor Na’vi. “He betrayed the human race, kid, no way around it.”

“Bullshit!”, Spider spat back.

“Language, boy.” Quaritch warned quickly before moving on, “You’ll see soon enough that Sully is no hero and he ain’t ever looked out for you the way I am now.”

“Looked out for me………?” Spider asked quietly. Quaritch thought that was the end of it until the boy threw the rations to the ground and rounded completely on him as he jumped up to his feet. “LOOKED OUT FOR ME?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!”

It was like a switch went off in Spider and none of the recoms were ready for it. Quaritch stared at the boy wide-eyed from shock while the rest of the squad turned in his direction. But the colonel’s shock turned to the defense quickly as Quaritch held up a solid hand to catch any fists thrown his way while getting to his feet, “Spider. You need to calm down.”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” Spider screamed, his head ticking to the right as he put his hand shot up to it, “THE ONLY PERSON YOU LOOK OUT FOR IS YOUR GODDAMN SELF! WHEN WE FIRST MET, YOU CARED SO FUCKING MUCH ABOUT HURTING JAKE, YOU SHOT ME OUT OF TREE! I COULD HAVE DIED! WHAT IF MY MASK CRACKED?! WHAT IF I BROKE MY NECK OR HIT MY HEAD?!”

“Starting to think you did, kid, chill out!” Wainfleet said as he approached to support the colonel if the teen started lashing out physically.

“YOU LET THEM TORTURE ME!” Spider continued, completely undeterred by being closed in by the other recoms, “YOU LET THEM HURT ME! TORTURE ME! CRACK OPEN MY HEAD WITH THAT FUCKING DEMON MACHINE! AND THEN! AND THEN AT THE END OF IT, GAVE ME ONE REAL CHOICE TO GET AWAY FROM THAT HELL! DIE AT THE HANDS OF THE SCIENTISTS OR OUT HERE WITH YOU!”

“Spider, calm down before I make you.” Quaritch warned one last time. He was holding his resolve firm but in truth, he was terrified by this outburst. He and Spider had talked about Sully a few times and the boy had never responded so violently.

“Don’t…fucking…CALL ME THAT!!!” Spider said, his head ticking again and pain washing over his face.

“What the fuck am I supposed to call you then?!” the colonel shouted back. If there was any wildlife watching them from the shadows, they sure as hell weren’t now.

Spider went quiet. His throat was sore from screaming and warm blood started trickling down from his nose. He tasted the salt on his lips but didn’t even seem to notice by the way he continued to glare at Quaritch.

“…Miles.” Spider said. Everyone was confused, exchanging looks and shrugs.

“You said no one calls you that.” Quaritch reminded him, another take away from their first meeting. He’d been hurt deep down that the boy didn’t want the moniker given to him by his parents, but a nickname was the least of his concerns after learning about his upbringing.

“Yea? Well, SOMEONE with that name has to protect him…” Spider said cryptically. Blood was now streaming from both nostrils and he winced as he closed his eyes, clutching his dreadlocks now from the pain ringing in his head.

“Say that again…?” Quaritch asked quietly, “Protect who…?”

The boy before him stood tall and proud but it made him sway too. His body was giving out. The stress this fracturing persona was causing was too much. He started to collapse, caught by Quaritch’s strong blue arms, and whispering one more word before his world went dark.

“…Spider…”

#atwow #avatar the way of water #miles spider socorro #atwow spider #spider quaritch #recom quaritch #miles quaritch #atwow fanfiction #ao3 writer

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1tad0ri · 4 years

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hiii. can i request a rough nsfw with sukuna where he's so frustrated with jujutsu sorcerers that he decided to unleash those said frustrations on the reader? like he just won't stop until he release all the stress inside him— kshjsch i feel like sukuna would do that 😳 he'll be rough all night long

warning: degradation, choking, breath play, very mild pain kink, hate fucking

ryoumen sukuna x fem!reader

i feel the same way so thank you, i’m going to be thinking about this for a long time

“you know, i really thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

the grip he had on your neck was bruising, but certainly a lot looser than you thought the king of curses would be. your hands clawed at him nonetheless, although the whole current concept of being shoved against the wall of your bedroom wasn’t exactly something you were complaining about.

the three impatient raps at your door earlier had you rolling out of bed, wanting to sleep after your latest mission. you’d thought it was yuuji, hungry for your warmth, but when you unlocked the door, rubbing your eyes and stifling a yawn, you’d been unceremoniously shoved backwards, the wind knocked out of you when your back met the wall. the glint of tattoos on a familiar face in the moonlight coming from your window told you all you needed to know.

sukuna watched you curiously and then his sickening grin was back, fingers squeezing a little harder. you gasped, stretching your neck away. “what? not going to answer?” he sneered, “maybe you all really are the same. scared little fucking sorcerers.” he leaned closer, breath fanning across your face. “isn’t that fucking stupid? you’re all a bunch of scaredy cats, aren’t you?” he pouted mockingly when he spat out the name. his lips were so close, if you just tilted forward—

no. whatever morbid fascination you harbored towards him didn’t change the fact he was... well... him. you stood your ground, leaning forward to bump your nose against his, your own scowl evident. “you can’t do anything, sukuna. once we find all the—”

“all my fingers you mean? the ones you can’t destroy on your own so you have to come up with some little plan to get rid of me?” he laughed bitterly in your face and you bit your lip, trying to calm your fury before you did something you’d regret. “it’s all the same. you’re scared of me. you don’t have the upperhand. never will,” he whispered at the end.

“i’m not scared of you.” your thoughts tumbled out of your mouth plainly without a second of hesitation, but the tilt of his head in question, his forehead brushing against yours, made you think that perhaps telling the truth around him was a very bad idea.

it was dark, hard to see his face, but god he was so close. “yeah? what are you then?”

good question. wait, no, bad question. bad, very bad, because you already knew the answer to it. or... did you? vocal chords at a stand still, there was no way to verbalize what you felt.

“hurry up, brat.” sukuna tightened his grip on your neck before loosening it just the smallest bit so you could speak. “i don’t have all day. how do you feel then? you with your little human emotions.”

words... what are the words. it turns out staring down a literal demon king in the eyes wasn’t the optimal place to think. “i... i don’t know.” your voice was small, unsure, lying.

the staring contest, backed by deafening silence, continued for a mere beat longer as you regarded each other with quiet contemplation. you could just barely make out his eyes and the curve of his lips, parted slightly. his breath was warm.

you couldn’t take it anymore and it seemed like he couldn’t either—you both automatically tilted your heads, lips pressing against each other easily, eyes falling shut. mouths sliding against the other, he gently pushed your head back to hit the wall, tongues running over one another. it was slow, hot, and you decided you should probably thank yuuji for keeping his lips so soft.

sukuna sucked your bottom lip between his own and your hands fell away from his grip on your neck to pull him closer by the front of his shirt (he hadn’t ripped it apart yet, an impressive feat). his leg slipped between your own, and you pushed down on it with your hips, the friction making you open your mouth further to him, something enticing about the fact he was a very good kisser.

but then it was like a switch flipped and his hold on your neck tightened once again. “what... what am i doing,” you thought he mumbled, voice hoarse (then again, your brain wasn’t exactly listening when you were busy making out with someone like him), kiss faltering for a brief moment. his lips curled into a frown, disdainful.

shoving you further into the wall as he pushed against you with his mouth, sukuna was all sharp teeth and rough lips now, swallowing up your whimpers, nothing soothing about it like his previous actions.

“i fucking hate you,” he spat, his hand abandoned your neck and moved up to squish your cheeks together, finding satisfaction in the way your lips puckering out, barely able to move. “do you hear me? i hate all of you.”

“the feeling’s mutual,” you mumbled around his grip, hazy from the kiss but knowing what you stood for, fury evident in your eyes and furrowed brows. he was the enemy. and you were... you. and... and...

you were met with a bitter laugh, your stomach curling into knots at the sound. you hadn’t noticed his free hand tugging at your waistband until it was too late, his hand slipping in and wasting no time running two fingers harshly against your soaking folds. “why are you dripping wet then? a slut and a liar?”

“fuck off,” you mumbled again, a lot quieter this time, face burning hot from embarrassment.

“i’ll fuck off when you stop acting like you want to fuck me.”

his words made you straightened up. “i- i’m not—”

“you’re not acting? mmm,” sukuna let go of your cheeks just enough that he could properly kiss you, tongue forcing it’s way past your lips, “of course you’re not. of course.” he was mocking you and you couldn’t say anything.

a finger pushed into your heat and you bit down on his lip in surprise, although the pain only seemed to spur him on further, a second finger easily shoving its way in next to the first. curling, pushing, rubbing against that sensitive, spongy spot inside of you, sukuna’s fingers had your legs shaking, the knee he still had pressed between them the only thing keeping you up at this rate. the grip on your face as he hummed against your mouth prevented you from avoiding eye contact with him, lips wet as he disregarded any type of mess he was making.

he was everywhere at once and you felt trapped. hot—it was too hot, your body was burning.

“su- ku... n... a,” his name came out garbled between the onslaught of your face being squished together and the sloppy kisses he pressed into you at irregular intervals. when his thumb rubbed against your clit as the two fingers continued to pump in and out, you gripped his shirt so hard you were sure you would rip it this time. “too... mmm,” a kiss that was more tongue than lip cut you off and you weren’t even sure if he heard you as you choked out the next words, “mmm, hah— much, suku—”

at once he released you, almost letting you drop to the floor, but you were able to just barely steady yourself against the wall in time. sukuna stepped back and away from your shaking form. you were gasping, lungs burning.

“w...why did you—”

“i can listen you know.” you could practically feel his eye roll from his dripping tone, even if you weren’t looking at him. “‘too much.’” he laughed as he mocked you. “more like you’re too weak.”

you were thankful he actually seemed to have a brain, but still— “you’re an idiot.” fuck, your lungs hurt, the retort scraping against the walls of them. he was good. it had been a while since anyone had left your head spinning like that.

sukuna flicked a hand dismissively. “‘an idiot’ who’s giving you a chance to breathe, you brat.” he decided to ignore the name for now, thankfully for you (although you didn’t exactly see it that way).

you couldn’t choke out another snarky response and simply focused on clearing your head. he gave you a chance to think and once you seemed clear-minded, he wasted no further time.

“bed.”

you blinked, eyes bleary, peering up at him from where you bent over, trying to catch your breath. “w...what?”

“on the bed. now.” he shoved his hands into his pockets, watching you blankly as you regained your senses. “unless you want me to fuck you on the floor?”

“no...” god, what was with you? or rather... what was with him? the ache in your core answered your question, your cunt feeling so empty now—he hadn’t even bothered to let you cum and you already wanted his fingers stuffed back into you. he was irresistible—you felt stupid even having the thought.

sukuna’s eyes narrowed, close to shoving you to the ground to finish what he started but exercising restraint for your sake. you’d need it. “i’m being nice and giving you a chance to get comfortable on your stupid bed, you idiot. go. now.” he was getting tired of repeating himself.

the last few snarky words and your own desire for him actually had you moving this time, climbing up onto the bed a few steps away and settling uncertainly onto the covers. you went to look up for further instructions but he was already on you, both of you tumbling back onto the mattress as he practically shoved his tongue down your throat, hands pushing up and under your shirt to squeeze your tits.

“take this off.”

you automatically pulled at the hem of the flimsy t-shirt at his command, sukuna giving you just enough room to get it over your head, and then his teeth were on your exposed breasts, marking them up. your fingers threaded through his hair, his head moving under your touch as you watched his mouth work with half-lidded eyes.

you didn’t think you’d be able to change in front of anyone any time soon, already knowing the blossoming colors of bruises would be apparent the next morning. reminder to self: cancel your upcoming shopping trip with nobara; the dressing rooms with her would surely be a disaster if he kept this up.

“who’s are these?” his grip was rough when he cupped your breasts, squeezing.

you immediately knew the answer he was looking for, all too eager to hand it over. “yours. fuck, they’re all yours.” your hands ran through his hair, urging him to continue his onslaught on the previously unmarked skin.

sukuna laughed, thumbing your nipples, giving one of them a light lick that made you squirm. “you’re more obedient than i thought you’d be.” he pinched the buds, rolling them between his fingers as you squeezed your eyes closed, gasping at the pain. “but that’s enough of that.” your eyes snapped open, about to ask him what the fuck he meant by that, but he was already setting to work.

his fingers hooked around your sleeping bottoms and pulled them down with your underwear, the night air cold against your damp lips. you rubbed your thighs together but his hands on your knees forced them apart as he peered down at you. you felt so exposed under his hungry gaze, entirely bare for him to see while he was still dressed. unfair.

“wanna see. don’t close them,” was his short, clipped explanation as he kept your legs spread. one hand on your knee, sukuna brought the fingers of his other to run along your folds again just as he had done before, except this time he could actaully see how you quivered under him, cunt glistening and dripping. he slipped two fingers to run between the folds and then popped them in his mouth, sucking the slick from his fingers and maintaining eye contact with you the entire time. you couldn’t look away.

he hummed, content as he licked the last bit off of the tips. “you don’t taste bad for a slut.”

all the focus was on you, him criticizing everything little thing you did, and you were a mess because of it. not even a chance to run your hands over his chest? unacceptable. you pointedly ignored his comment, pining after some form of a reward instead. “at least take your shirt off. thought you hated those things.” the clothing ratio here was starting to grate on your nerves.

sukuna rolled his eyes but crossed his arms over his chest to grab ahold of the sides of his fitted t-shirt and tug it over his head. you watched, mouth watering at the sight—the moon provided excellent illumination for the scene, his body revealed inch by painstaking inch as he disposed of the fabric. god, he was so hot. you hated it.

muscles on display, sukuna raised an eyebrow at you as though he were asking, happy now? your silent reply came when you reached up to run your hands over the dips of his abs, his chest solid and tattoos curling over the surface.

“that’s better.” you made a show of your gaze tracing over the surface before looking up at him, smiling to yourself. “surprised you didn’t just rip it off.”

sukuna simply scoffed and swatted your hand away, moving from between your legs so he could work off his pants and kick them off to the side.

“knew you’d like to see me take it off properly,” he answered at last, back to you as he wiggled out of his boxers finally and chucked them off the foot of the bed. you didn’t get much time to admire his flexing back muscles before he was on you again, settling between your legs like he knew he belonged there (you weren’t sure you could argue with that point).

he pumped his cock, grabbing one of your legs and pushing it back. precum leaked from his tip, length already fully hard, and sukuna was enjoying your gaze on him maybe a little too much. leg shoved back and in the air, you whimpered when he rubbed the head along you. you didn’t need prep after being fucked by his fingers earlier you supposed and you weren’t sure you’d even be patient enough to sit through him stretching you out any further with anything but his dick.

you wanted to feel it yourself and so you reached a hand out to wrap around the base, captivated by how he watched you as you thumbed the slit, breathing heavy but not saying anything, letting you do what you wanted.

you wanted it in you so badly.

when he opened his mouth in question, eyes flitting up to yours, you were quick to cut him off, already knowing what he was going to ask. “yes, i’m sure.” you didn’t know curses could actually be compassionate, and it was cute when his jaw locked hard at your confirmation and he nodded, shifting his gaze back to your hand.

you released his cock and sukuna set back to lining it up with you, grip on your leg locking the limb in place. you shivered under his hold and he grunted when the head nudged your entrance, slowly pushing in.

“fuck. take it. take it all in. fucking slut.” he sunk fully in in one motion, the pace enough not to have you screaming out at the stretch but making your breath catch in your throat all the same. “yes, just like that. a good bitch, that’s what you are, aren’t you? look at you.”

you didn’t even know what to think at this point, a shaky resemblance to his name tumbling from you, more so a moan than actual talking. you could feel him everywhere—so full, so overwhelmingly full.

shoving your leg back further until it was almost painful, cock bottomed out in you, sukuna snapped his fingers in front of your face. “i asked you a question, brat. or are you already too fucked out of your mind to answer?”

you couldn’t breathe, head heavy, and tried to nod in confirmation as you struggled to puzzle through his words, but then you shook your head to answer no—god, you were confused. what was the right answer? what was happening?

maybe you really were already too fucked out of your mind. you vaguely recalled his words from earlier and were able to form a somewhat coherent response. “a good bitch... yes, i a- wait.” what were you saying? first you let him fuck you and now you’re openly submitting to him? the curse that had nearly cost you and your friends your lives countless times?

pride wouldn’t let you go along with his little game even as your dripping pussy told a different story. “i’m not anything to you.”

sukuna scoffed, hips grinding into you as he leaned over you, hooking both of your legs over his shoulders and pressing them back, close to your head. “and here i thought we were actually starting to get along.” a mirthless laugh left him, both of you eye-to-eye now where you lay.

fire burning in your eyes, you were very much reminded why you hated him so much. a self-obsessed asshole was what he was. “i’m not exactly looking to be friends with the king of curses, you idiot.”

“but look at you now. you wanted this.” he licked a stripe up the side of your neck, pausing at the base of your jaw to grin and press a sweet kiss to the area. you shivered and your hands found his shoulders to grip onto. he wasn’t wrong about the wanting it part—the amount of times you’d fantasized about exactly this was concerning. “i wonder what would happen if your little friends knew about how you really felt. what’s that term you like to use? ‘fraternizing with the enemy?’”

sukuna laughed again when your expression fell, face hot at the reminder of the others. “i suppose this is considered a bit more than mere fraternizing though, hm?” he continued, smiling and kissing your cheek.

whatever. no one would find out anyway. expect... expect maybe... yuuji—what had happened to him anyway for this to happen? knowing him, he’d probably been too tired after the last mission and sukuna had easily switched in—the same mission that seemed to have set sukuna even further along in his fury against jujutsu sorcerers this night.

you weren’t dating yuuji per say (it was... complicated), so your qualms when it came to fucking the curse possessing him were... minimal to say the least. you wouldn’t have done it if you were already taken, couldn’t have done that to yuuji, sweet as he was. but even in spite of all that, sukuna was right... this whole thing was so... no, don’t think about it.

you didn’t care either way (...maybe)—you couldn’t let his words get to you.

“just move already.”

you heard him grumble, annoyed, and he propped himself up to hover above your face. “i was giving you time to adjust. you’re so ungrateful.”

and with that, sukuna snapped his hips into yours without another moment of hesitation and you dug your nails into his back, mouth open in a silent scream because fuck.

“ungrateful fucking brat.”

“more,” your voice was hoarse, focus narrowing in only on the way he was fucking you.

you weren’t sure if it was your words or his own desire that spurred him on, but he set a bruising pace from the start, the places where your hips met hurting every time he rammed back into you. he was marking up your neck, the area already feeling sensitive and oh-so overabused, yet you not wanting to tell him to stop.

sukuna’s hand wrapped around your neck again, the feeling familiar now and you clenched around him at the sensation, him growling when you did so. the slight squeeze of his fingers had you seeing stars, the light-headed feeling going straight to your building arousal.

just like before, his hand traveled up to squeeze your cheeks and he was hovering over your mouth again, lips brushing against your own from the momentum of his thrusts. “let me kiss you again.” sukuna’s eyes were dark, unreadable.

you were quick to act at that, not letting him lean down, but rather craning your neck up to latch onto him, moaning as your mouth fell open for him to push his tongue in. his hand released your face to travel down to tweak at your nipples and grip your breasts again, other hand holding your leg steady against him. “filthy fucking slut.” he forced the words into your mouth, speaking around your lips that kept chasing after him. “fuck, you’re so fucking tight.”

sukuna’s attention returned to your neck, leaving you to gasp into the air and missing his warmth against your face. when his thumb found your clit, your breath hitched and you knew you so close to coming undone. the rubbing of his cock against just the right spots inside of you, filling you so wholly was not helping.

“su...kuna, please, i’m gonna—” you were babbling, chest heavy when his teeth sank into your shoulder, stinging. his wet kiss on the area was cooling, the contrast making your head tilt further back, wanting to give him easy access to whatever he wanted.

“i’ve got you.” he was whispering against the wet skin, voice low with his pants, and you shivered, digging your nails into his back even more. “come on, brat, you want to cum for me, don’t you?” yes, you did. the stretch, his hands everywhere at once, his scraping lips—yes, you wanted to let everything go.

“fuck, fuck, fuck.” you let yourself come undone, heat filling your chest. everything was him—that’s all you knew in this state.

“look at you, creaming all over my cock. god, you’re so pretty. pretty little slut.” the words just kept flowing as he fucked you through your orgasm, chasing his own release.

when he finally came, your hole was aching, abused, the sound of skin against skin the only thing you could focus on, mind cloudy. his cum was hot and filling when it spilled into you, your stomach doing summersualts at the feeling. his pace gradually began to slow, the sopping sound of him fucking his cum into you as he rode out his own high the only sound besides your ragged breaths. when he eventually stopped, he was leaning over you, sweaty foreheads pressed together, and he pushed one final bruising kiss to your lips that you gladly returned.

you were panting, chest rising and falling unevenly. “fuck, oh my god.” you reached up pull him back into another kiss, needing something to hold onto. it was an easy kiss, no thought going into its form, just knowing that lips were meant to be on each other and slotted together. his lips were so soft, and his fingers along your side were so soft, and his chest against yours was so soft and you were absolutely lost to everything.

sukuna finally pulled back to let you breath, knowing you were probably stupid enough to just keep pulling him in more and more and ignoring your lung capacity until the very last second unless he stopped you.

chests heaving, you stared at each other and he brought a thumb up to rub at your swollen lips. you flicked your tongue out to lick at the digit playfully and smiled. a laugh bubbled out of you and he returned the grin, his own deep chuckle vibrating through you where you were still pressed against each other.

it was laughing that you moved to push him to roll off of you. “oh my god, i can’t believe we just-” the hand that gripped your wrist, your own hands still planted on his chest, stopped you immediately. his smile had morphed back into one that was anything but sweet.

you were suddenly aware of the ache in your legs where they were still pressed over his shoulders and the dull throbbing of your pussy as it begged for a break, him still not having pulled out—the look on his face told you that you wouldn’t be getting a break from those sensations any time soon.

“who said we’re done?” his teeth glinted in the moonlight and god the line was so cliche and he must’ve known you’d hate it so much. what you hated even more was the throb in your core at his words despite all that. “wanted to cum in you at least once, but your tits-” he paused to squeeze one of them for emphasis, “are looking a little too clean.” body covered in sweat and marks all over your chest from his handiwork made you think clean wasn’t exactly the correct description, although you understood his sentiment.

surprise ridden expression falling away, you rose to meet his challenge, your own grin reflecting back. how would it feel when he came on your stomach, on your face, on your ass—anywhere and everywhere? would it be the same feeling as before when he’d spilled inside of you? (would you get to taste it?)

the thought was horrible, you knew, but the trickle of white out of your hole around his cock and dripping onto the sheets made you think maybe it was okay to be horrible for once.

“do your worst, king.”

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thefallenbibliophilequote · 3 years

Text

Little Black Dress

Bucky x Reader

Summary: Bucky has had a lot of trigger words throughout his life, but he never thought he would find a new one- until you uttered it.

Word count: 2,938

Warnings: mean girls, language, body insecurities angst, fluff, many alludes to sex, Bucky being a romantic.

A/N: this is for Kas' writing challenge @wkemeup congrats on 10k followers! You are incredible and deserve all the love! My prompt was: A is feeling insecure about how they look. When B asks what's wrong, A attempts to explain but B is genuinely confused because they can't imagine a world in which A is anything but perfect.

A/N2: did I insert Taylor lyrics in between? Maybe… But You Are In Love and Fearless are superior. Also, shit got deep and real here. This is not beta read, sorry!😅

No one is allowed to repost my writing or steal or copy my work! Reblog on tumblr is fine.

Masterlist

It all started with a stumble, but then again- doesn't it always?

You were walking down the sunny street, book in hand, with the wind surrounding you as you went forward.

On your right, the door to a bar opened with a thud and you looked up to see two men walking out an elderly man who has been clearly drinking all morning. You heard him when you passed by the bar, turning your head to him.

"Excelsior!" his words were slurred but the sight still made you laugh. You however didn't get the chance to laugh when you stumbled forward, hand shooting forward to block your fall to the ground. Those hands ended up being set on a chest. A very firm chest. You looked up to the man who caught you from falling and were met with beautiful blue eyes.

"Are you okay? He asked and straightened you up, both of his hands on your waist.

You managed to tear your eyes away from him, you quickly nodded.

"Yes, thank you." You smiled shyly at him, blushing when you realized your hands were still on his chest. You quickly moved them away just as he moved his gloved hands away from you.

He bent down to pick up the book that fell out of your hands.

"The Hobbit? Good choice." He winked at you when he handed it back to you.

"Thanks, I've heard great things about it, so I finally decided to buy it and read it." You looked at the book, frowning when you remembered you didn't place a bookmarker in it. You chuckled lightly, looking at him before continuing, "It's great so far, but I didn't bookmark it so now I lost my page."

"You're on page 106," the man racked his hand through his hair and straightened up his red shirt.

"And how do you know that?" feeling amused, you opened the book to the page he said only to find it to be the exact page you were in. You frowned, remembering you shut the book when you felt yourself falling.

"I just have very good eyesight," he once again ruffled his hair as he stuttered, "and memory… sorry if that made it weird." He scrunched his nose and you couldn't help but think of how cute he is.

"It's okay, it's not weird- pretty impressive actually." You held the book in your hands before smiling at him and taking a step back. "Well, I should go… thank you again."

You put a hand on his arm before moving past him and continuing your walk down the street.

Bucky stood in place for a moment after you left, chuckling to himself he walked forward with you still in his thoughts. After all that he has been through, being an assassin and a spy taught him to be calculated, think things through and be confident in his actions.

But he didn't know you, so why did he feel the need to turn around and go to you?

It made no sense, and yet he did just that.

He turned around and ran until he caught up to you and stood in front of you. With surprised eyes and a questioning brow, you looked at him, awaiting for what he has to say.

"Hi," he extended a hand to you with a charming smile that had you melting. "I'm Bucky."

And that's what started it all.

•

It was a few months later that you walked with Bucky back to your apartment after another wonderful date night. He had told you who he is early on and he swore that he fell for you faster after you reacted well to it and reassured him that you still want this- whatever this is. The two of you decided to take things slow, Bucky liked courting you properly and you didn't mind at all, it was obvious that your feelings for him grew and that you were quick to fall in love with him, and it was obvious that he returned the same feelings. Lately the tension felt heavier, the need was stronger, and with every lingering touch and every glance at your lips, you knew that tonight will be it. Your first kiss. Sure enough when Bucky stood at your doorstep you felt it coming, you saw it in his blue eyes, felt it in the air, and heard it in your heart. A million thoughts raced on your head in slow motion, fear clouded them when Bucky turned to look at you. What if he will regret this? What if this is a mistake and he will leave? What if you weren't good enough for him? You looked into his eyes as he pulled you in and it gave you the bravery to push all of those thoughts out and focus on the man in front of you, and so you wrapped your arms around his neck and leaned in to meet him in the middle. It's the first kiss, it's flawless and you let it take over you, fearless.

Since then, when your relationship got official, things went ever upwards. You learned more about one another, you grew closer; you laughed, you cried; you fought, and you talked; you said I love you, and he always said it back.

•

"Definitely not that one!" you laughed when Bucky pulled a sparkling dress that was sure to blind someone out of the rack. His laugh was music to your ears, booming and made his eyes crinkle, he was gorgeous.

Bucky put the hideous thing back in place and continued walking with you, hand in hand, looking for a perfect dress for Tony's party.

You were looking around when you passed a mannequin wearing a gorgeous little black dress- one that you wish you could wear. You let your eyes linger on it as you passed by it, not looking at Bucky who noted your gaze on the dress, and yet despite that you did not stop to Bucky's surprise.

"Okay how about we divide and conquer? You go find yourself a suit, I will go try to find a decent dress."

"Sounds good, Doll, just don't get lost here." You laughed as he winked and went to the other side of the shop.

You went through the various clothing items when you came across the dress that you saw earlier, it was black, basic and yet so special; on the mannequin it looked perfect and yet you couldn't help but wonder if it would look good at your body, it was a lovely dress but what if you will ruin it by wearing it? It would be so pretty, just not on you.

You went on to try and find dresses that will fit you better.

Bucky was in the men's section where he picked out an outfit when a saleswoman walked up to him with a big smile on her face.

"Hello, would you like any help?" she asked him and he saw the way the woman looked over his body shamelessly. He was about to shake his head when he saw you still picking out dresses.

"Actually-"

"A handsome guy like you deserves the best suits, let me show you some that would flatter you," she put a hand on his bicep.

Across the room you saw the sight and your face fell, you knew Bucky wouldn't do anything but still seeing other girls flirt with him made your blood boil and insecurities rise. You never told Bucky about these feelings, what would be the point? You quickly decided to wrap it up and take the pretty purple dress you found, it's more in your comfort zone, it's probably better.

Bucky laughed nervously before backing away from the girl and looking at her.

"Actually, I was hoping you could save a certain dress for my girlfriend." He smiled when he saw her face fall a bit, stuttering, she only nodded.

Only a few minutes later he met you at the counter, eyeing the dress you picked before giving you a quick kiss on the cheek. The girl in from earlier appeared, you saw the way she looked at you when Bucky put his hand around you, Bucky only smiled at you, his arm still around you as you exited the store.

Putting you on his motorcycle, you wrapped your arms around him as he drove you home, but the thoughts would not leave your head.

"Doll, I need to go on a couple of errands before the party, so I'll meet you in the tower before?" you took off your helmet and nodded at him.

"I'll see you there." With a kiss he was gone out of your sight.

•

You stepped into the avengers tower with a bag with your dress and essentials inside it a couple of hours later, going to rest a bit with Bucky before the event starts and you'll both have to get dressed.

You got inside the elevator, sighing as you leaned against the back of the elevator, and then mentally groaning when the elevator doors opened up yet again only one floor later.

"I think it is just rubbish, there is no way." One of the two girls who walked in said to the other.

"I'm telling you, that's what I heard!" the two girls were with their backs towards you, they probably didn't notice you were there at all as they continued to gossip. "Sergeant Barnes has a girlfriend now, I heard Dot talking and apparently she is totally not on his level."

"I bet he is with her because of pity, it will never last," The blonde snickered. "Do you think he will be at the party tonight? Maybe we could talk to him, who knows what might happen."

Her friend nodded and you felt your heart sink down, suddenly this elevator was too crowded for you.

"That bitch will probably run home crying by the end of it." You thanked the gods when the elevator opened at their floor.

Holding the tears back, you quickly pressed the close button so no one else will get into the elevator as you went to Bucky- you had to keep it together, for him. You know he loves you, he will make it all go away.

And when you reached his floor, his smile immediately made your eyes shine as you happily jumped into his embrace.

"What took you so long, Doll?"

•

"Are you sure we have to go?"

"Yes."

"But do we have to? You're a supersoldier, you can protect us!" you giggled when he poked your sides. The two of you were tangled up in bed sheets, too comfortable with each other's presence to move away, your bodies were pressed together with his arms securing you to him and you wished you could stay like this forever.

"I will protect you no matter what, doll, but I promised to come to that stupid party and I can't be there without you," he kissed down your neck slowly, knowing just how to get to you. "Plus, I have a surprise for you."

"Oh? Is that so?" you raised an eyebrow at him.

"Mhm," he kissed up your neck again so he could look at you. "I would love to stay here like this and spend the night worshipping you, but I am really looking forward to this surprise- I promise that I'll worship you afterwards."

"I will hold you to that promise, Sergeant!" you laughed as he got up from the bed and went towards his closet. When he came back you saw that he carried a bag from the same store that you were in today. "What is this?"

"Go on, open it." Hesitantly, you opened the bag and you faltered when you saw what was inside, the little black dress you had your eyes on.

"How did you-"

"I saw you staring at it, so I got it for you." He sat down next to you again and pulled the material out of the bag. "I don't know why you didn't take it, but I would love to see you wear it, give me a show?"

He wiggled his eyebrows and despite your internal struggle you nodded at him as you went to change in the bathroom.

When you came back into the room, Bucky's eyes turned a shade darker, and all he wanted to do was take that dress off of you. You paid no mind to him as you walked over to the full length mirror, moving your hands across your body and assessing yourself as Bucky's gaze followed every move you made.

"Doll, you look-" you barely heard him though when you voiced your thoughts to the mirror.

"I am so ugly, this dress looked beautiful on the mannequin it's a shame I'm ruining it." You said as a matter of fact, "I think I will wear the dress that I picked, it's better."

Bucky's eyes snapped up from your ass to the back of your head as you continued looking at the reflection, taken aback by what you said so calmly.

Bucky has had a lot of trigger words throughout his life as the winter soldier, after getting rid of those he never thought he would find a new one until you uttered the word-

"Ugly." You shrugged, "I could give it to Natasha- she would love it."

"What did you just say?" Bucky rose up from the bed, and at the tone change of his voice you turned around to him.

He just couldn't wrap his head around it. You, his girl, the girl he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life with; the girl who took his heart so quickly he wondered if maybe it was always yours; You, the girl who he is certain must be a goddess, the girl that is so beautiful he is certain he would be distracted in a battlefield by; the girl who smiles at him and takes his breath away; the girl who can shatter any bad day he has only by the smell of her perfume and her words; You, that girl, was right now standing in front of him calling herself things he could never associate with her.

"What do you mean, Bucky?" you got confused at the slight anger in his blue eyes, it wasn't at you, but you still saw it there.

"Don’t you dare call my girl ugly," he said it so strongly you were afraid you would upset him, you didn't mean for your insecurities to slip into his view- you didn't mean to say it in front of him.

"Bucky, but it's true. I know that you love me as I am, but I can't really ignore this, I mean- look at me." You pointed to the mirror behind you with a small nervous chuckle. "It's okay."

"Doll, it's not okay, what are you talking about? You're gorgeous!" you wrapped your arms around yourself, suddenly feeling too exposed and it was not because of the dress.

"Bucky, I'm not- maybe you just don't see it, but I do. Love can make you blind." You didn't know exactly what to say to make this conversation go away, and from the determined look in Bucky's eyes you knew avoiding and escaping was not an option. You lowered your eyes down.

Bucky sighed, taking a moment to collect himself as he studied your body language before taking a step forward and bringing your chin up so you would look at him, caressing your cheek.

"I'm sorry doll, I didn't mean to attack you- I just can't have you talking like that about my best girl." He pressed a soft kiss on your forehead, staying close so you could see the sincerity in his eyes. "Do you always feel this way?"

You only nodded the best you could with his hand holding your chin up.

"Why didn't you talk to me about this?"

"What's there to talk about? You didn't need to see this, this is just the situation, this is just how I see it, this is just a fact." You shrugged.

"Doll, this is not a fact, this is self hatred." Bucky shook his head, he could not imagine a world in which you are anything but perfect, "I know it's hard to accept yourself doll, but I need you to know that you are beautiful and absolutely breathtaking in this dress."

Bucky turned you around towards the mirror, wrapping his arms securely around you before letting his hands roam your body which he spent nights memorizing.

"Don't say that word again, doll give me the chance to show you what I see." With a shuddering breath you nodded at him as he continued to shower you with praise that made your cheeks warm.

"Does that mean we are not going to the party?" you chuckled as a small smile rose on your lips.

"Oh no, we are definitely going to the party," he whispered in your ear. "I am going to show you off to every single person there, point out every guy and girl that stare at you, longing and jealous, and then make sure they all know that you are mine, gorgeous." He sealed that with a soft kiss on your lips. When you tried to kiss him again he pulled away. "Hmm, I just had a great idea."

"What is it?" a mischievous smile grew on his face.

"I think we should angle the mirror towards the bed." If your cheeks weren't hot before, they were burning now.

•

Tags: @callmeluna @sstanbarnes @buckys-other-punk @drabblewithfrannybarnes @easygoingtheatre @that-one-person @justab-eautifulmess @onceupona-happilyeverafter @wipplogg @supraveng @samwilsons-pillowpecs @ayybtch @kitkatd7 @chrissquares @make-me-imagine

#little black dress #my writing #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky fluff #bucky angst #insecure reader #fluff #angst #bucky x female reader #bucky fanfic #fanfiction #bucky imagine #tfatws #marvel #mcu #kas9kwc #writing challenge

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five-rivers · 3 years

Text

Three Twilights

Can be considered a loose sequel to Deep Sea Diver (same vibes).

Warnings: Soft body horror, Danny totally ignoring objectively horrifying things

“I was thinking,” started Maddie over breakfast, “we could start observations of that island that came into view last week, the blue one.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll have to use the Speeder, then,” he said. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

There was a pause as both of Danny’s parents looked at him, confused. He didn’t blame them. Danny rarely went out as a human anymore, and certainly not for anything like errands. Looking like he was still fourteen after all this time made doing anything even remotely official difficult.

But this wasn’t a human errand. “Yeah,” said Danny. “In the Ghost Zone. I’ve got to go to Three Twilights.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“It’s, um, a city,” said Danny. “Well, three cities, I suppose, depending on how you want to group them. One Realm. On the shores of the Celestial Sea. I’m sure I’ve put it in your files.” Probably a direct copy from his files from before he came clean to them, but still. He stirred his cereal counterclockwise, letting his ice powers chill the milk.

“Yes,” said Maddie, “but there are a lot of places in there. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to properly look at them all, much less memorize them.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Danny. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What kind of errand are you running, Danno?”

“I’m picking something up for a friend. A book,” he clarified. “They lent it to someone there, but they need it back.”

“A book,” said Maddie. “For the Library of Tongues?”

“No, they’ve got a contract service for overdue loans.”

“Contract service?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. Moonlighting bounty hunters mostly.”

“For a library?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Danny, shrugging. “They’re really serious about their work.”

“If it isn’t for them, who is it for?” asked Maddie. “The princess? Wulf?” Wulf had actually been over a few times, and his parents had… Well, saying they got along would be an overstatement, they didn’t really have anything in common beyond ripping portals in the fabric of the universe, but everyone had been civil. “The boy at the school?”

“No,” said Danny. “Wulf would just get it himself.”

“Who, then?” pressed Maddie.

Danny put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, delaying. Maddie hadn’t eaten anything since Danny had mentioned the errand. The errand was, in fact, for Clockwork. Danny was always more than happy to do anything for Clockwork. The older ghost had saved him too many times for him to be otherwise. But Jack and Maddie were wary of Clockwork. Danny didn’t get it, but talking about it hadn’t been productive so far.

He didn’t want to lie to his parents. Not ever again.

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said.

Ah, yes, there were those suspicious looks. The ones Danny could have interpreted even without being able to almost literally taste emotions.

“I see,” said Maddie.

“Anyway,” said Danny, quickly, “if I haven’t shown you Three Twilights yet, it’s really cool. I don’t want to take the full rig, but maybe the little ectocam would be okay? The one that I can clip on.”

“Why not the normal camera with an ectofilter?” asked Jack. “That has more features, and it’s easier for us to get data from.”

“Three Twilights. It’s dark there,” said Danny. “It might work in Civila, but not so much in Naŭtika and Astronomia, and I sort of want to go down to the beach and see if I can find any star pearls, and that’s really dark, so if you want to see anything properly, it’ll have to be the sonar setup, which I’m not doing, the noises that thing makes are offensive, or the ectocam.”

“And the Fenton Phones?” asked Maddie.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But I always bring those.”

“Yes,” said Maddie, after a moment. “You do.”

“Great. It’s settled, then.”

Most of the journey to Three Twilights could be made by air. Or, rather, what passed for air in the Infinite Realms. But when the rocky edge of an island came into view, Danny touched down. Further in was a blue wood, and Danny walked under its inviting branches.

The atmosphere started sunny, summery. The leaves and needles of the trees were the color of a clear blue sky. But as he got deeper, the leaves were touched with sunset colors: golds, reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. They fell to the ground, crunching beneath Danny’s feet. The sunset grew longer, deeper. The leaves on the trees grew sparser, revealing patches of sky.

By the time only bare branches framed the sky, it was a dusky, dim, purple. A few lonely stars twinkled in the sky.

He passed out of the forest. The city of Civila rose above him. Windows glowed in the near dark like eyes.

Danny had changed, too. His aura had dimmed. The whites of his suit were now dark gray, and patterns swirled on its surface like camouflage, like wind-twisted clouds, like nebulae.

Shadows bled around the corners of the city buildings like ink in water. Will-o-the-wisps bobbed, casting pools of illumination in lieu of streetlamps. Ghosts walked up and down the streets, or floated only a few meters up.

The buildings glittered. Everything was dark, vibrant, colors. A sharp, sweet scent filled the air, something dark and rich beneath it.

The canals in the center of the street were filled with flashing fish. Or perhaps serpents. Or perhaps worms. Between how fast they moved and the dimness of the light, it was difficult to tell.

Danny could feel his irises contracting, shrinking down to needle-thin rings. His teeth were sharp. He matched the other ghosts around him. This was how the Civila liked it, how things were in this part of Three Twilights.

Everything in order. Everything peaceful. Everything civil.

Danny walked through the market square, and bought some charcoal-colored cherry pastries from a vendor who looked like someone’s nightmare demon with a chip of ghost ice.

Much to his parents’ protests. They didn’t care for him eating ghost food.

There were seven bridges to Naŭtika, which was built half underwater and half on boats that floated both on the water and in the air. As the dark waters of the inlet lapped at his feet, Danny felt the changes ripple across his skin. To a human, he would look pure black, except for the faintest glimmer of rim lighting and the stars of his eyes. He and the other ghosts moved silently, cutting through the waters like shadows.

To Danny’s ghostly senses, the place was alive with emotion and force, energy loud and crackling against his senses.

“We’re solely on the ectocam, now,” said Maddie. “You were right about that.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, half distracted by a whispered sea-shanty backed by a choir of not-voices and not-sound that wove together with the mastery of a hundred years of practice.

He glided up a rope net, and began to navigate the ropes to the taller ships. The very tallest, the ones that scraped the ever-darkening sky and blotted out uneven sections of stars, moored the glass-like ships that floated above. He’d need to reach them, to get to Astronomia.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, breaking his concentration on his path.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, whisper soft, drawing some looks. He turned, slowly, on the spot, planks barely creaking under his steps. A gentle wind ruffled his hair.

“There,” said Maddie. “By the ghost that’s registering red.”

It had taken Danny a long time to learn what color on the ectocam’s artificial sensor signified what, but he had, if only to reduce the guessing when they played this game.

“Star pearls,” said Danny, eyeing the ropes of stone that glimmered brighter than his eyes currently did. They were one of the only reliable forms of light, out on the Celestial Sea, although they were valued for other things, too.

“They’re putting out a massive amount of energy,” said Maddie.

“You mentioned them before,” said Jack. “You wanted to look for some?”

“On the shore,” said Danny. “Out past Astronomia.” He wanted to find his own, rather than buy them.

Partially because they were expensive. He didn’t really want to think about how much unmelting ice he’d have to conjure up to equal one of them. They were usually bartered in exchange for… more significant things.

The ghost by the pearls beckoned him closer, clearly hoping to make a sale. Danny shook his head, broadcasting regret and admiration for his wares. Speech might be faster but, under these circumstances, it would not be polite.

When Danny left, the social rules of Three Twilights would only leave the faintest impression on his mind. But, for now, they were a heavy, but not uncomfortable weight. One he could shrug off if necessary, but which was currently useful.

“What are they?” asked Maddie, as Danny turned away.

“They happen when big enough things fall into stars,” said Danny. “They’re all the memories of what they used to be… and the imagination of what they could become, when the star dies. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.”

“And you can just… find these? Lying around?”

“Not… not really,” said Danny, slowly drifting towards a crow’s nest. “It’s like that one national park. That one where you can collect diamonds? You never really find anything good, but you can look.”

“I see,” said Maddie. “So, you don’t expect to find one?”

“Yes and no,” said Danny. “If I don’t expect to find one, I probably won’t. Unless the sea is feeling ironic, which it usually is, apparently. I mean, it’s an ocean and the stars. And prophecy is, like, ninety percent irony, but mostly for an outside observer. Which honestly makes sense, I think. An observer, not an Observant. Those are different things.”

The kind of silence on the other side of the line was the one that emerged when Danny used too much ghost logic.

“Anyway,” he continued as he scaled the crow’s nest and started traversing the glass ropes and chains to the all-but-invisible glass ships, “no, I don’t really expect to.”

The path to Astronomia was a staircase carved from moonstone harvested in October, when the moon was full and orange-red. It burned Danny’s eyes to look at and feet to walk upon. Like many ghosts who fixated on things like astronomy, he adapted quickly and thoroughly to the spiritual dark.

This darkest twilight was built of delicate bubbles, whorls, and arches of glass, any of which could cradle a ghost, all of which could be phased through with impunity. There were no true roads here, but certain places were easier to travel through. Addresses were carved in the glass in glimmering, holographic sigils made from glass-caught starlight that humans would never be able to read, but Danny could understand with a glance. It was not silent in Astronomia, the high wind sung through the glass like the immense instrument it was, playing ethereal and eternal music that mirrored heaven.

As always, Danny was enraptured. Perhaps the stars here were not true stars, only their memory and imagination (or simulacra made from stripped ghost cores, he remembered with a shudder), but he felt so close here.

“Danny? Are you still with us?”

Danny started to reply, but realized he had forgotten, once again, that he had no mouth here.

A phantabulist played a story for a group of not-quite-children, characters made of carefully constructed light chasing each other about with vigour. Danny stopped for a while to watch the story, a parable about spiders and fish. They were common here, storytellers who plied their craft this way. The stories could be pressed into glass prisms and orbs that served as books and viewed even in other environs of the Ghost Zone.

He moved on, passing through a glass bubble full of ghosts that snatched at and stroked him as he passed by, leaving stars and dark clouds to swirl across his skin. His suit had long since smoothed over and sunk in. His skin was a thin surface, a membrane holding in liquid night. He was like smoke, like vapour, thin and easily overlooked.

The places he passed were homes, places of business, warehouses, and hotels, organized without any apparent reason. A phantabularium glowed like a struck match, snatches of story visible inside its walls. He walked by.

Eventually, he reached the palace at the city center.

The ghost who lived there was old. Older, perhaps, than Pandora. She filled the vessels of her palace in placid pools connected by crystalized threads and looping tubes. Seven round-bottom flasks, radiating outward, like the spheres of heaven. The music here was almost deafening.

This was Urania, Muse of Astronomy. Astronomia was her city, and subordinate to her will before all else.

Danny resisted the urge to kneel. He was not here as a supplicant, and they both knew it.

The lowest pool bubbled, and slowly a glass prism, a dodecahedron, floated to the top. Danny took it with careful hands and left Urania’s direct presence as quickly as possible.

Being near her was always difficult. She was the Muse of Astronomy, and she felt he did not indulge his second Obsession as much as was proper.

Indeed, she thought it should be his first.

(The starlight inside him pulsed. He was never sure how much influence Urania could exert on him when he visited Three Twilights, never sure how much the relationship between his passions shifted when he was here. He loved it here too much to stay away forever.)

Astronomia did not end all at once. Instead, as one walked farther from the palace, the delicate, clear glass was replaced by black sand. When Danny had feet again, and could feel the grains beneath them, he knew he was no longer in Astronomia, but on the Shores of Night. The Isles of the Moon were faintly visible in the distance, sea-spray framing them in silvery halos.

He felt human here. His breath moved in his lungs, and his skin rose in goosebumps, the sleeves of his t-shirt fluttering in the wind. The sea and the sky were the same, and twice as beautiful for it.

“Sorry for going silent on you there,” said Danny. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a mouth there.”

“How do you forget that?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged, even though he knew Jack couldn’t see him. “Do you think the ectocam might be able to spot buried star pearls?”

#danny phantom #ectoberhaunt 2021 #ectober 2021 #ectober #ectoberhaunt treat #danny totally ignoring objectively horribly things #worldbuilding

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onecanonlife · 3 years

Text

Tommy and Wilbur fell apart a long time ago, and there was never any time to mourn the pieces of what they were.

But here's the most important thing: Tommy doesn't give up on the people he cares about.

(Or: on grieving, graves, a past that refuses to let go, and learning to look forward at long last.)

(word count: 5,619)

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

“You know,” Tommy says, “I never really got to—to mourn you. Not properly, anyway.”

He’s not sure what response he’s expecting from Wilbur. He’s not sure why he’s saying anything at all. He’s not sure why he’s here.

That last one is a lie. He scuffs the ground with his shoe, and then pretends that he didn’t.

“I wasn’t expecting you to mourn me,” Wilbur says, in that stupid, even, condescending tone of his, the one that he uses whenever he thinks Tommy has said something incredibly obvious, when he’s got an idea in his head of how things are and what people mean, regardless of the way it all actually is. “In fact, I rather thought you wouldn’t. Shouldn’t, even.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He has no patience left. No patience left for the look in Wilbur’s eyes, no patience left for the way he focuses straight ahead, barely sparing him a glance, no patience left for the way he speaks, measured and calculating, every word he says carefully weighed against the end result, curated for intent and impact. No patience, and he had precious little to begin with. “I’m not even—this isn’t about you.”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. It makes him look like a prick. “Oh?” he says.

“Because I would’ve,” he continues, doggedly. Now that he’s started saying it, he’s damn fucking well going to finish it. “But, y’know, you blew it all up, so we had to rebuild, and then I got exiled” —His voice doesn’t waver at all— “and then shit just kept on happening, so I never got to decide. How I felt. I never got to think about it.”

Wilbur laughs, then, and it’s the laugh that he hates, because it’s the laugh that’s not genuine. He knows what Wilbur sounds like when he’s happy, and this isn’t it. Hasn’t been it for a long time.

“Not sure there’s much to think about, there,” Wilbur says, and he scowls.

“Shut up, you prick,” he says. “And yes there was. That’s not something you get to choose. What I feel.”

“I’m not trying to—” Wilbur starts, but he shakes his head, going back to talk over him, because no, he’s not doing this. Not today, and not here.

“You are though, aren’t you?” he says. “You always do this. You go, you go mimimimi, I’m Wilbur, and I understand everything about how people think and I’m always right and you are all wrong, and you, I dunno, man. You just. You just don’t. You don’t know. You think you know things, but you don’t. You’re not always right. And I’m—I don’t fucking know why I’m bothering with this right now, but it’s not so you can tell me that I shouldn’t be. Because that’s not something that’s up to you.”

“Then why are you bothering with this?” Wilbur says, and his voice isn’t unkind, but it’s not kind, either.

“I just said I didn’t know—”

“Because if you’re asking me if you should mourn me, you already know what I’m going to say to that,” Wilbur says. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s the fucking problem,” he says, and tacks on a quick, “Not like that,” but Wilbur’s face has already hardened, and yeah, there’s a million better ways he could have put that, but that’s the thing about talking to Wilbur. His brain is never firing on all cylinders, as it were, because it’s too busy trying to figure out if he should associate him with warm summer days and the haze of potions and a strummed guitar or explosions and drifting smoke and blank eyes and the awful realization that what he thought would make everything right didn’t do anything at all, and that nothing would ever be right again.

And before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater stretches out, vines trawling over the edge, leaves sprouting from between the rocks, sunlight catching on the pool at the bottom, the flag fluttering lightly in the wind. Before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater has grown over, time pressing itself into the cracks. Before the both of them, L’Manberg is a crater. It wasn’t always.

“You make everything so fucking difficult,” he says.

“It’s what I live for,” Wilbur says.

“It’s what you died for, too,” he says.

Wilbur pauses.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.” But for once, he doesn’t elaborate, and Tommy glares at him. Only for a moment, because there’s no point in glaring when someone won’t see. Won’t look. Wilbur has his eyes turned to the crater, and Tommy has his eyes turned to Wilbur, and something about that is how it’s always been. The vines have grown over the earth’s old wounds, but Tommy can’t help but feel like they’ve curled around his ankles, holding him to the spot, the moment, and every moment that came before.

I never got to mourn you, he doesn’t say again. I never got to mourn you, and I feel like I should. But you’re here, and what the hell am I supposed to do with that?

Wilbur won’t hear him. And if he does, he won’t understand.

-----

He collects bits of the past like buttons, or stamps, or memories.

He has his discs. He’s hesitant to play them, even now. Hesitant to take them out of his enderchest. He has his home, still in the same spot, all this time later. His hill, his hole, his garden, their bench. He sat on that bench and heard Wilbur, once, reaching out from beyond the grave, and Wilbur told him he was proud, and something in him ached in the same way that his scars now do when it rains.

He has some of Friend’s wool. Just that, just wool, because he doesn’t know how to knit, and he doesn’t know who would teach him. He can sew a little, but it was something born of necessity, of the need to patch up uniforms and close the tears over freshly dealt wounds, and he can still feel the needle pricking into his fingers, again and again and again. He never could figure out how to hold it so that it wouldn’t. He bled for L’Manberg in more ways than one.

Deep inside a chest, he has two uniforms. Blue and red and white. One is a size too small. The other is several sizes too large, and always will be.

He still goes to pray, sometimes, though not as often as he did. He got the chance to meet god and found no one there, so it’s a little tricky, these days, being faithful. But he’ll go to Church Prime, because no one else really does, so he’ll have the whole building for himself as he strides up to ring the bell, to ask for guidance and favors, to pay his homage at the feet of a higher power that he cannot believe cares. On the best days, he’s tempted to try to conduct a service. But there’s no point when there’s no one to hear it but himself. Even he can’t bring himself to put on a show for empty pews.

He prays, and nobody answers, and sometimes he can’t help but remember the void, the tearing, ripping nothingness, raking him to shreds again and again, where he was not alone and yet nobody came.

He considers visiting Tubbo. But Tubbo has his own life, and a mansion he hasn’t moved into, and a town that Tommy does not belong to, and an allegiance that Tommy does not share. He considers visiting Ranboo, but that’s either the same as visiting Tubbo, or it’s the same as visiting Techno and Phil, or it’s the same as visiting Wilbur.

So he looks at his discs and doesn’t play them, bunches his hands in wool that he has no use for, and calls out to a god he can only now offer false homage. He holds to the past, and wishes he could believe he has a future. Wishes that he didn’t see obsidian and curtaining lava whenever he closes his eyes.

-----

The first time he hears Wilbur play again, he hides in the forest like a fucking coward.

The guitar is strummed hesitantly, haltingly, interspersed with silence every few seconds, as if Wilbur is struggling to find the old positions, struggling to move his fingers just right. He wonders, then, if limbo took away his calluses. He didn’t think to look. Thirteen odd years without playing a guitar is bound to make anyone rusty. Tommy wonders if Wilbur’s fingers will bleed if he presses down on the strings hard enough, and then he banishes the thought from his mind, because something in him revolts at the idea of Wilbur bleeding. Of Wilbur trying and trying to play until he—

There is something to be said, here, about using yourself up in the pursuit of something greater. There is something to be said, here, about holding matches ‘til they burn down to the skin, about stairs without handrails, about things that are never meant to be and yet claw their way into existence anyhow. There is something to be said about pushing too far, too quick, and flying too high.

Wilbur’s not singing. Is just going from chord to chord. And Tommy hides behind a tree, pressing his back against the bark, because it has been so very long. Wilbur didn’t play in Pogtopia. Wilbur barely played in L’Manberg. The last time he heard the twang of this instrument was sitting by a campfire, plans for a van in the works, the night sky starry and welcoming above them, his chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the flames. And Wilbur smiled at them, smiled at all of them, and his voice was light and sure, his notes soaring.

Wilbur’s not singing. After a moment, he starts humming, softly and meandering, and each turn in the melody hits like a wrench, like he’s dragging the notes out behind them, yanking at the tune whenever it goes somewhere he doesn’t like. It’s a lot of leaps and skips and jumps, a lot of highs to lows and then highs again, and something about it sounds like wailing. There are no words, and there is no happiness.

But he’s playing. He’s playing, and does that count for something? There was no music for such a long time, no music in the darkness and no music even in the light, and now there is music in the grey twilight, and it is not happy music but it is music. Wilbur is playing again, and Tommy’s not going to cry, because what kind of pussy cries about hearing a guitar? So he doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t venture out from this spot, either. He stays there, and listens as Wilbur sends his voice shooting up into falsetto and then back down again.

It’s good that there are no words, maybe. They’d be sad. He can tell.

“That sounds nice,” Ranboo says, all of a sudden, and Tommy jolts at the same time that Wilbur’s hand must jerk, a discordant clash of notes, something that can’t even be called a chord. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You didn’t,” Wilbur says, after a pause. Tommy almost creeps out to see his expression, because he can’t picture it. Can’t tell from his voice what his face is doing. “I was just about done anyway.” There is another pause, and a rustle of clothing. Standing. The crunching of leaves underfoot. It’s nearly autumn again, and already the leaves are changing, falling.

It would be wrong of him to resent Ranboo. He’ll never admit it aloud, but he likes him. Rather a lot. Hiding it is probably pointless now, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. But Ranboo is occupying the space that should be his, that once was his. There is a van in a forest, and a guitar song winding its way through the branches and the roots, and everything is different and everything is the same, and the new story is written without him in it. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he thinks it is not this. He thinks it is not to be left behind.

And Ranboo does not know Wilbur well enough to hear the lie in his voice.

They go off together through the trees. Tommy stays. Runs his hand across the tree bark, and tries not to put his emotions into words. Better to let them drift along as is. Better not to give them voice, because whispers turn into shouts all too easily, and there is not enough space here for shouting.

-----

There’s a thing about graves. There’s a thing about graves and who gets one, and who doesn’t.

He didn’t think about it at the time, the fact that Schlatt—Schlatt the tyrant, Schlatt the enemy, Schlatt the man who had Tubbo executed—got a funeral, and a tomb, has one even to this day, and Wilbur got rubble and a room sealed off and untouched. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no burial. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no gravestone to deface or to ornament with flowers or to kick or to scream at or to kneel beside and speak to or to cry or to do any or all of those things. He didn’t think about it at the time, because there was rebuilding, and then there was a house on fire, and then he doesn’t like to think about it.

And there was Ghostbur.

Wilbur hates Ghostbur. It makes him angry, the way that Wilbur hates Ghostbur. Ghostbur was good, and Ghostbur was kind, and Ghostbur tried his best, and Ghostbur did not deserve to die in the way that he did, terrified, with no one there by his side, with only shouted numbers to soothe his terror, and Ghostbur does not deserve to be stuck in a train station for all of eternity. So he makes Ghostbur a memorial, because it’s all he can do, and the first time he’s next to it at the same time as Wilbur, he meets his eyes squarely. A challenge. A dare. And Wilbur looks right back at him, and then to the gravestone, and his lips curl into a sneer.

And he says nothing at all.

He says nothing at all for a long time. Until he does, and it’s all made so much worse.

“Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” Wilbur asks, and it’s all very even and nonchalant, so much so that it might have him fooled if he didn’t know better, hadn’t heard time and time again exactly what Wilbur thinks of the ghost he left behind him.

“The fuck kind of question is that?” he demands.

“An honest one,” Wilbur answers.

“Right,” he says. “Because you don’t lie anymore, or whatever the fuck.”

“I don’t,” Wilbur agrees, and that is a lie. Tommy would be insulted if he weren’t so tired of it. “Really, I’d like an answer.”

“What does it matter?” he snaps. “He’s not here anymore. He’s not here anymore, and you are. No changing that. I’m fucking stuck with you. You’re like, you’re like a leech, you know that? A leech in my brain.”

Wilbur smiles tightly.

“I’d rather be a leech in your brain than dust in the ground,” he says. “Like he is.”

“Shut up,” he grits out. “Don’t—just don’t fucking talk about him.”

“Alright, then,” Wilbur says. “I won’t. If it upsets you that much.”

And he doesn’t. And the grave stays.

And it is not until later that he thinks about the thing about graves again, about who gets one and who does not. There is no grave with Wilbur’s name on it. There was no soil to lay him to rest, only cold, hard stone, a room undisturbed, a monument to destruction. And had there been time, he would have thought about it more. Would have taken it upon himself, perhaps, because the thing is, in the end, that maybe Wilbur deserved better than to be remembered as the man who destroyed his nation. Deserved better than to be remembered solely by the ravine’s dark corridors and the smoke that clung to him like foreshadowing and the way his eyes looked dead, dead, dead for a long time before Tommy watched Phil plunge the sword into his chest.

Because he was not only that. It hurts to think about, how he was not only that. But sometimes, things that hurt to think about ought to be thought about. Because Wilbur was shattered edges that Tommy knows only now that he could not fix, because Wilbur did not want fixing, but Wilbur was also laughter and a gentle hand on his shoulder and the words “I’m proud of you” that lit him up like sunlight, and he was kind and he was kind of a dick and he was brilliant and Prime, maybe Tommy should have known. Should have known that there was going to be a fall. But he looked up to Wilbur like a child to a shooting star, and it’s a long time before children understand that shooting stars aren’t stars at all, and that the wonder of them comes from self-destruction.

But before Wilbur fell, he shone. A beacon in the dark. Hope, freedom. And before he was those things, too, he was Tommy’s brother. Just that, and nothing more, because more was not needed.

And he received no grave.

It’s a question of time again, and a question of mourning, and a question of how he was ever supposed to grieve when there was no time for it at all, and when a ghost shadowed his every footstep and dripped blue from cold fingers and insisted that nothing was ever wrong. But for the first time, he wonders how Wilbur thinks about it. Graves, and ghosts. And who gets a grave, and who does not.

Who is mourned, and who is not.

Who is given up on, and who is not.

The question echoes once again: “Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” And this time, Tommy hears no taunt in it, no mocking, no cruel joke about the ghost who deserved so much better. Only bitterness, and exhaustion, and resignation. Like Wilbur already knew what answer he would be granted.

That’s a realization of some sort, that Wilbur believes he prefers him dead. It’s a realization of some sort, but he doesn’t know what kind.

There’s ghosts and there’s graves, and there’s the living and there’s the dead, and both are left waiting for relief that never comes. It’s thirteen years in a train station and it’s months without knowing what to think, without having space to breathe, without being able to process that his brother was unwell and then that his brother was gone. It’s too much time and too little, too much distance and too little, and Ghostbur did not deserve what he got, but neither, he thinks, did Wilbur.

That thought feels right. And wrong all at once. Bitter, heart-wrenching. That Wilbur deserved better. They all did, that he knows—but Wilbur did too. And that thought is muddled up in all the rest, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, but it’s there. If there’s anything to be done with it at all.

-----

Here is a fact: he kept Dream alive for Wilbur’s sake.

Here is another fact: he doesn’t know if he regrets it.

Because here is the thing: he remembers that day, remembers the pain and the fear and the devastation, and he remembers the moment it all turned around, cowering behind Sapnap and behind Eret until the time came to step forward, to take the axe in hand and deliver the blow, to deliver himself to safety, finally, finally. And he remembers the words bitten out from Dream’s mouth, panicked, desperate, and he remembers what he said. He will never forget.

And the decision, in that moment, was far easier than it had any right to be.

It became harder, later. Because he made the decision thinking, in large part, of the person that Wilbur used to be. Of a quick, charming tongue and flashes of smiles and music and song and leadership and knowing what to do, always, and Prime above but Tommy missed that person. And so maybe he deluded himself. Maybe he thought, in that dark room, with the portal swirling behind him and the entire server at his back, that he could get that person again. That Wilbur would return, and that it could all go back to the way it used to be. Discs spinning in the sunrise, the server at peace, his brother with him.

But death put those thoughts to rest.

Because death proved to him that Wilbur had only gotten worse. Because in death, Wilbur was happy he was there, did nothing but talk to him and make him play competitive solitaire as he was torn apart atom by atom. Because Wilbur—he became so very certain that Wilbur, if released, would bring nothing but harm to the server again, would tear everything down, because there was something in his voice, in his eyes—

But that was then. And now, Dream still lives in prison, rots but lives, and Wilbur has a burger van in a forest with a friend and spends most of his days lounging about or making eyes at Quackity or talking up a storm but doing jack shit, and Tommy doesn’t know what to make of it, and doesn’t know how to admit that maybe his idea of what Wilbur would be like and what Wilbur would do wasn’t entirely accurate.

And he still doesn’t know if it was worth it. Worth the constant fear, worth knowing that one day, Dream will be out, will come to him, will try to finish what he started. He tried to prevent it and only made it worse, only led Ghostbur to his doom by his innocent, trusting hand, and Dream resurrected—

A monster, he would have said, once. He no longer knows if that is fair.

Because here is another fact, one that he is only now beginning to understand: Wilbur is very, painfully human. He’s always known, and yet he hasn’t, because once, he thought Wilbur hung the stars and the moon and all things bright and glowing and good, and he thought that Wilbur could never be so human as to be fallible, and then it turned out that he was wrong. And it was easy, in the aftermath of that, to figure that Wilbur was perhaps some kind of monster instead, and everyone around him said as much.

But that, he thinks, goes too far in the other direction.

His hopes will never be realized. He will never have the old Wilbur back. He clings to a past that clings to him right back, that has him in a chokehold and will not let go, but Wilbur is something else entirely. The rest of the past does not live and breathe, is contained in his overflowing chests, in uniforms that don’t fit him, in the church’s empty hall. The rest of the past is made of things he can hold, but he has never been able to hold Wilbur. Not then, and not now. And there is no hope of making of them what they once were.

There is no going back.

So was it worth it, then? To keep Dream alive, and to receive this, this man who varies between manic energy and calculated calm, who speaks with a whip in his tone at some times and unbearable softness at others, who proclaims Dream his hero and then claims he would have killed him, if he could, for what he did? Was it worth it, and is it worth it, and how is something like that measured at all?

Wilbur is a tightness in his chest when he speaks and a ghost that won’t leave and a ghost that died and a thousand words like a thousand stinging hornets and no picture that could encompass all of them, all of what they are and were. Wilbur is Wilbur, and Wilbur is not safe, not anymore, and perhaps Wilbur is not even good—but there, that, that is wrong, and he won’t make this mistake twice. Wilbur is good, it’s just that he’s forgotten that, and Tommy is so, so very tired of having to be the one to try and remind him. And Wilbur is empty space and Wilbur is a space too full and overflowing around the fractured edges, and Wilbur is too bright and too loud and too quiet and too little and too much, and even now, even still, Tommy does not know where they stand.

Was it worth it, to have this?

He doesn’t know. But sometimes, he imagines what it would be like if Wilbur were still dead, if Wilbur were never, ever coming back in any shape, in any form, and his throat closes up and his eyes sting, no matter how much he has laid out his hatred for the man, his regret at going into the prison that day. He tries to imagine a world without Wilbur in it, in which he has given up on Wilbur, and even now he doesn’t like it, even though maybe he should, and that is, perhaps, answer enough.

-----

“Why do you keep coming here?” Wilbur asks him.

“I dunno,” he says, instead of a hundred other things. “Why don’t you ever fucking leave?”

Wilbur just looks tired. There are bags under his eyes. Tommy thinks he can guess why; he so rarely slept during their exile, but Tommy is thinking about limbo, and train stations, and how whenever he closes his eyes, part of him is convinced that his heart has stopped beating. He wonders if Wilbur, for all his sunrise-obsession and constant movement and moments of utter wonderment at the world around him and the way he doesn’t move whenever a creeper approaches him, feels the same way.

“There was a reason I asked Ranboo to do this with me instead of you,” Wilbur says, suddenly, apropos of nothing. Tommy feels himself still. “I mean—actually, I asked Phil, and Phil was all, oh, Wil, go and make friends, and I was like fuck you I’m not twelve years old anymore but Ranboo’s pretty great so it worked out. But I—I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t get it. Why you choose to keep coming ‘round here anyway.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “What’s not to get?”

Wilbur shoots him a look, eyebrows going up and mouth slanting all sympathetic-like.

“Tommy,” he says, slowly, as if talking to the child that Tommy has not been in a long, long time, “I’m not what you want.”

Several answers form in his head, and then dissipate just as quickly before he’s able to reply. “‘S that right?” he says, and something boils within him, hot and snapping and popping.

“I can see it when you look at me, man,” Wilbur says, and he doesn’t even sound upset. “You’re—and I mean, I don’t blame you for it. I was awful to you, Tommy. I don’t deserve anything less than your scorn. But you and everyone else, you’re all waiting for what I’m going to do next. You’re all waiting with bated breath. Scared of the next disaster I’m going to cause. So you don’t—you don’t have to be here, Tommy. Not if you don’t want to be.”

There are so many things he could say. Your disasters always cause the most damage to yourself, is one of them, and then there’s a simple, you think I don’t know that? Because how many times has he told himself that same thing? That he doesn’t need to be here? That it would be better for him if he wasn’t? And some part of him must listen, because he’s not actually here all that much. He has other things to do. A life outside of this, outside of this forest on the edge of a fake desert and a van that makes pretty shitty burgers and one Wilbur Soot, like a portrait from the past and yet nothing like that at all, because portraits are shadows, still images, permanent and unchanging, with mo mutable future, and Wilbur Soot is none of those things.

He has a life. He has Tubbo, still, even if it’s all changed. He has others. He’s not alone.

Wilbur’s right that he doesn’t have to be here.

“Stop fucking doing that,” he says. “Stop trying to make my decisions for me.”

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says. “You always are. It’s my fucking choice whether I want to be here or not. And I’m making that choice. Not you. Me. And sure, maybe one day you’ll manage to get rid of me for good, but you’re gonna have to fucking work at it, and I don’t see you trying.”

“I thought you didn’t want me here, Tommy,” Wilbur returns, and the words seem to fall so effortlessly, like easy acceptance, and why, why is it this of all things that Wilbur seems to take in stride? Why is it this and not a thousand other things? Why is it this and not the fact that despite it all, despite every warning sign and every indication that maybe it might be better for him to give up after all, Tommy is still here?

“I didn’t want you gone, either,” he snaps, and Wilbur falls completely silent. So he continues, because who knows when he’ll have a chance to say this again? That’s the thing about chances; they’re difficult to count, impossible to anticipate, and he bollocksed up the first one he got, to try to break through. “I never wanted you gone in the first place. So maybe I don’t—maybe I don’t fucking know what I want. Because I never got to just live with that. There was never a chance to—there wasn’t even a fucking grave for me to visit. I never got to figure anything out, and now you’re back and nothing’s the fucking same, so maybe I don’t know what I fucking want. Maybe I don’t fucking know if I want you here, but I didn’t want you gone. I didn’t want you to be dead. And then you were. You just were, and I couldn’t—did you expect me to be alright with that?”

It’s a question of mourning, and a question of graves, and a question of chances and who deserves them. And Wilbur just looks confused.

Fuck him.

There’s so much more to say, and he can’t say any of it at all, and the past chokes him like a knot of vines or a clump of flowers in his throat, but he’s still breathing. He’s still breathing, breathes again, whatever, and Wilbur is the same. They’re the same in a lot of ways, maybe. On the other side of the final death, trying to hold onto and release the years gone by all at once. Moving forward, but stuck in quicksand, and they’re never going to get out if they don’t let each other.

“You’re my brother,” he says, and that’s all. As if that explains everything.

And maybe it does.

Wilbur blinks.

“Ah,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Fucking ah.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says.

“You’d better be,” he says.

And impossibly, the vines uncurl, and the flowers come floating up, and when he takes a step forward, it comes easily.

There is a van in this forest, and it is not the same van. Some distance away, there is a crater in the ground, and nature has draped itself over the ruins of the lives they once had, and the flag still flaps at the bottom, and they are never, ever going to be able to rebuild what they lost. The crater will always be a crater, a scar in the earth. Healing, healed, grown over and stitched shut, but still a scar.

And there is a man standing in front of him who is not the same man that he knew. Not the same man that he claimed for his family, and who claimed him in return.

But he is not the same, either. Perhaps nobody and nothing is. The past clings, and he clings tighter, but perhaps he needs to loosen his grip, because despite everything, there is a future out there, somewhere past the next sunrise. They are going to get older. They are going to live. So he has his discs and his uniforms and his wool and his prayer, and he has this, too, because it is his choice. To take a step forward, and wait to be met in the middle. To dare to turn ahead, to believe that there is something awaiting him. The both of them.

And he thinks he might finally be able to let himself grieve. Grieve, and let go. Grieve the dead, and what they had, and what they might have, and grieve for the fact that there was no grieving, no grave.

And then, let himself hope that they will have better after all.

-----

The next time he hears Wilbur play, he steps out from behind the tree.

And maybe the song is a little less sad.

And maybe nothing will ever be the same as it used to be.

And maybe it will be alright.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #crimebois #/rp #dsmp fic #cat writes fic #long post #sometimes you just. you just gotta write some c!crimebois y'know?

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helpistolethesecharacters · 3 years

Text

Love Conquers All

Part 2

Zuko x Male Reader

Word Count: 1643

-----------

The next morning Y/n followed Zuko back down to the kid's campsite. Y/n was half expecting them to have packed up and left, but he was happily proven wrong when they got down there.

The kids were sitting in a half circle, clearly waiting for the two of them to arrive. From the looks of things, they might actually be more open to talking to them today.

A look at the water tribe girl told Y/n that she still had a serious distrust for them that would be annoying to get past.

They approached the group. Y/n held back. He would be on guard for anything they might pull that could hurt Zuko.

"Um, so, you guys have something you want to say?"

Y/n guessed that if you couldn't count on the Avatar to break the ice then the world was doomed.

"Yes. I'm here because I know now that my destiny is to teach the Avatar firebending. I also wanted to say that I'm deeply sorry for all of my actions that have caused you pain or worry. I know that my apology doesn't fix everything, but I hope that it can help pave the way to better relations between us."

Y/n had missed this version of Zuko. He had been buried under so much pain and anguish, and had been desperately trying not to let anyone see it. It was good to have him acting more like himself again, but no amount of royal training was going to remove his awkward manner.

"Why should we believe anything you have to say? You've been chasing us around the world trying to capture Aang and kill us! We shouldn't even be sitting here listening to you!"

That girl was really sticking with her hard-done-by feelings. Y/n was going to have to keep a close eye on her around Zuko.

"Actually," the water tribe boy interjected, "I had a question about that."

He stared into the remains of their fire for a second before looking up at the still standing duo.

"Why didn't you just use your airbending to capture Aang? I mean, it looked like you were holding your own against Katara pretty well. When we first met you could have wiped the floor with us. So why?"

Y/n was surprised. The Water Tribe boy was more perceptive than he had given him credit for.

"It's a secret."

Bless Zuko for trying to take the question for him. Y/n sent a grateful smile his way.

"The Fire Lord has decreed that any airbenders are to be executed. If any are found, it's a death sentence."

Y/n looked around at the appalled faces of the kids. Finally it looked like they were starting to realise what they were involved in.

"How can you side with monsters like that?!"

Y/n turned furious eyes on the opinionated girl.

"I don't side with them! I side with Zuko."

"That isn't any better! So you're saying that if he decided to go back to the Fire Nation tomorrow you would just go with him?"

She was on her feet and flinging her words at him much the same way she had been with water the day before.

She turned back to her friends.

"This is why we can't trust them! I know you want to have someone else who's an airbender Aang, but he won't do the right thing if Zuko doesn't."

She spat Zuko's name like it was a bad word.

Aang turned big eyes on them.

"Would you really go back to them?"

"No."

"You just said----"

"I won't go back to them because Zuko won't. And I stand with him."

Y/n chanced a glance at Zuko only to find him already looking at him. He had that soft smile on his face that had been missing for years. Y/n was so glad that it was back. They reached for each other at the same time, fingers coming together and intertwining easily, familiarly.

There was a surprised intake of breath from the kids in front of them.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh." Was Y/n's eloquent response.

"Well, that doesn't make it okay to do the wrong thing when you know it's wrong."

She was still lecturing them, but the wind had clearly gone out of her sails.

Y/n managed to pull his eyes away from Zuko and look back at the group.

"We really are on your side this time."

Y/n stilled. The air had shifted in the way that it did when it was trying to warn him of something, becoming electrified. He spun around, scanning their surroundings, trying to locate the problem. He spotted the man up on the cliff just in time to bring his sword up and deflect the wave of energy that he sent at them.

Y/n growled. His timing had been off, resulting in his returned wave being sent off in a different direction.

"You all need to get out of here! If he keeps this up, the whole temple is going to come down."

"Y/n, if you can keep him busy, we can try to find a way to get rid of him!"

The Water Tribe boy was apparently their leader, was Y/n's distracted thought as he stood waiting for the man's next barrage.

If they got out of this alive he was going to smack Zuko upside the head for ever hiring the assassin.

That was probably something that the group of kids didn't need to know about, Y/n thought absently.

He was almost too focused on the long distance fight between the two of them to notice Zuko attempting to distract the assassin from where he stood nearly beside him. When had he gotten over there?

Something whizzed by Y/n's ear and he was so distracted by the thought of Zuko doing something so monumentally stupid as to antagonise the most ruthless assassin in the Fire Nation from a matter of feet away, that he didn't even sense it until he felt the air move by him.

He watched as the boomerang flew true and struck the assassin in the center of his third eye. He felt the world slow down as he saw the man draw in a breath for another wave of energy, but instead of it being sent to where they were standing, it exploded in his face and in the air all around him.

Y/n's heart stopped when the whole side of the temple crumbled and fell. Zuko had still been up there.

His sword fell with a clatter that was muted in his ringing ears. He was over by the side of the temple before he even thought about it, scrambling to find Zuko. If he was gone then that was it.

Y/n felt a thought settle in the front of my mind. He felt a sickening sinking feeling in his stomach, but there was no denying it.

He turned empty eyes on the group who were all celebrating their lucky escape. It was their fault.

He stood at the edge of the temple, watching them, feeling the wind caress him. It was whispering something to him, but he still couldn't hear anything over the adrenaline still coursing through his body.

He took a step toward them, reaching for his sword but coming up empty. His gaze narrowed in on it, lying on the floor back where he had been standing.

He was shaking, he realised as he tried to take another step but found himself on his knees instead.

The wind was growing around him as he fell forward onto his hands. He could feel himself falling apart, but he couldn't seem to pull himself back together. He had always had Zuko for that, but the stupid self-sacrificing idiot had gone and gotten himself blown off the side of the temple.

There was a groan from the ledge Y/n was nearest to. The wind died suddenly.

Y/n turned his tear streaked face sharply in it's direction.

He recognised that voice.

Then he was scrambling once again for the ledge, and grabbing hold of Zuko's arm and pulling with everything he had until he had his idiot firmly in his arms and far enough away from the edge.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and held Zuko in his still shaking arms. Y/n hoped Zuko was comfortable because he was never letting him go again.

-----------

They had gathered around the fire that someone had restarted to sort out something for lunch.

Y/n had the feeling that his melt down hadn't gone unnoticed by at least one member of the group. When he had gone over to pick up his sword from where he had dropped it, the little blind girl had watched him with her unseeing eyes. He had just sheathed it and walked back over to Zuko's side, but she hadn't stopped watching him ever since.

Y/n was sitting by Zuko's side, too strung out from earlier to be properly on guard, but he was sure that since they had seen him in action they might be a little hesitant to attack so openly.

Once everyone had a bowl of food Sokka cleared his throat. He had an uncomfortable look on his face.

"So."

Y/n waited silently. This was Zuko's destiny, it was up to him to earn his place with the group.

"You know why we're here. Our reasons haven't changed. I think, it comes down to this. Can you trust us?"

"Look," Sokka started, "We don't fully trust you, but I think that's fair. I mean you chased us around the world, but we also saw what you did for us back there. You could have died trying to help. So we're willing to give you a chance. But just one."

Zuko's face lit up with his happiness. It was a sight that Y/n knew he would always enjoy.

"You won't regret this. I promise!"

#Zuko x Male Reader #Zuko #Male Reader

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ymiwritesstuff · 3 years

Text

The Limits of a Hero

Hello hello, I’m here to bring you something rather special. A quick fun fact: When I started writing years ago, Link was actually the first character I ever wrote for, so this piece is sort of going back to my roots as a writer. That, and I’ve been in a HUGE Twilight Princess mood lately, (I recently bought a few volumes of the manga and I am very much enjoying it) so I thought I’d write this quick thing for my favorite incarnation of Link. I hope those of you who also like him will enjoy this.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Link x Reader

Summary: During a seemingly ordinary night out in the woods you decide to give the hero a much needed chance to rest.

Notes: Fluff, some light angst

The tree trunk felt rough against your back, but it provided a much-needed opportunity to finally rest and recollect your energy after yet another day of fighting against the twilight and its corrupt ruler. Yet you found a strange calm when surrounded by the night, the warm flames of the campfire swaying in the cool wind.

The wood crackled, the breeze howled and your eyelids grew heavy. You wouldn’t close them, however. Not yet. Instead, you kept your (E/C) eyes on the glowing fire, occasionally throwing in a stick or two to make sure your source of heat wouldn’t disappear.

Your thoughts wandered, as they often did ever since you were thrown into this dangerous adventure. How did everything change so fast? You could still hear the water trickling down the waterwheel in Ordon as if it was yesterday. Everything had gone wrong so fast, and now you were trying to save the entire kingdom from something you didn’t fully understand.

You knew it was the same for Link. But unlike you, he was much better at suppressing his confusion and doubts. You had noticed a change in him, no doubt caused by the sudden responsibility laid upon his broad shoulders. In addition to the more obvious changes in his attire, his cerulean eyes lost some of their glow, he somehow grew even more silent and he didn’t smile as often. All because he felt that his role as the hero chosen by the Gods demanded it.

It must have been tiring, you thought, yet he pressed on, never once letting even a single mention of how much it all weighed down on him slip from his lips. But you could see it. Whether it was in the way his shoulders fell with a sigh whenever he finished slaughtering a group of Bokoblins or how he yawned and stretched his arms almost every time he hopped off Epona. His body was fatigued, but his eyes held nothing but determination.

The rustling of leaves that came from behind snapped you back to reality, and your eyes fell on the bush where the grey animal soon emerged from, carrying something in his mouth the edges of which and a part of his lower body was seemingly damp. You watched as he walked with heavy steps towards the fire before dropping the thing you recognized to be a Hyrule Bass on the ground.

The fish flopped on the dirt and you found yourself raising a confused eyebrow at him, before locating his fishing rod not too far away from the fire, indicating that he had forgotten to take it with him. You looked at the fish again.

“Are we this desperate?” You managed to ask him as his beastly form quickly reverted to his original form you were familiar with. He sat on the ground and gave you a slight nod.

“We’re running low on food,” he said, taking a sip from his bottle of water. Most of his equipment was laying on the ground, though he was still fully clad in his green tunic, chainmail and all.

You noticed him taking out a small knife, no doubt intending to use it to prepare the freshly caught fish. He would not dare use his sacred sword for such a task. The bass was fairly big, enough for both of you, you surmised.

“I can take care of it,” you offered, noticing the tired look in his eyes as they turned to you. He shook his head lightly.

“It’s fine, (Name),” he assured and began cutting into the flesh, but you persisted.

“You haven’t slept properly in days.” It had been an exhausting few days, filled to the brim with battles against Shadow Beasts and other enemies. It took its toll on both of you yet he showed no outward signs of fatigue. Not that it was necessary, for right now, anyone could see the dark circles and bags under his otherwise gorgeous eyes.

He glanced at you, clearly pondering over your words while continuing to cut the fish. You were right, as you often were. He was exhausted, but the selflessness in him didn’t want you to lose any of the sleep you needed.

“Someone has to keep watch,” he began, but you quickly shut him down.

“Which I can do.”

You scooted over to him, noticing him making the final cuts to the scaly flesh of the fish. Placing a hand on top of his, you kept your eyes on him, trying to convince him.

“You need to rest, Link. Please.”

Upon hearing your voice that left your lips as a quiet plea he finally gave in, letting out a sigh that carried all his exhaustion into the air and letting go of the knife. He finally turned to you, his drained eyes glowing in silent relief.

“Will you be alright? You know you can wake me up any time if-”

“I’ll be fine. The only thing you need to worry about is getting some sleep.”

Your hand reached up to slowly remove his cap, exposing his dirty blond hair that bathed in the glowing embers of the campfire. You offered him a smile equally warm as the flames which he thankfully returned.

Planting the tiniest kiss on his cheek, you retreated from him, once again leaning against a lone tree. With your hand you lightly patted your lap, wanting the hero in front of you to have the best possible chance at getting a good night’s rest.

He laid his weary head on your lap and almost immediately, he let out a long yawn that indicated just how much he needed this, despite his stubborn protests. Your fingers found their way into his hair, running through his locks in a soothing manner.

Silence fell around you, though it was a refreshing change from the usual noises of battle and struggles. You stared at the fire once again, its welcoming warmth enveloping both of you.

“You’ve changed,” you admitted, thinking back to the simpler times, during which Link would have been more than compliant to sleep when he needed it. He let out a soft sigh, his eyes glued to the starlit sky above.

“I guess I have,” he agreed. You wondered if he meant it to the same degree as you did. Even now, you noticed the solemn expression on his face you had never seen back home.

Home. You thought about it a lot. Maybe a little too much at times. Ordon meant a lot to you, even more to Link you assumed. Perhaps that’s why he had gotten so stoic and serious. He was merely trying to protect what he held dear.

It was admirable, he was, by all accounts, a hero. Courageous, selfless, strong, yet still a mere Hylian. A capable Hylian indeed, but still a Hylian. A Hylian who the entire kingdom needed to save them. Everyone expected so much of him, it seemed as if he himself forgot his limits.

“You’re not all-powerful, Link.”

Your eyes fell on him, and his own looked up at you. Someone needed to be his voice of reason, and you were more than willing to take that role if it meant ensuring his safety when he sometimes couldn’t.

“Maybe I should be.”

Your eyebrows frowned at that. You knew he felt a certain sense of guilt about what happened to the children of the village. They were safe now, but there was a stinging sensation of shame embedded in him that made him feel responsible for all of it.

“Don’t say that. You did all you could. Pushing yourself to the point where you can’t stay up anymore won’t solve anything.”

He knew you were right. You almost always were. Link had always secretly wondered if it was a blessing that it was you who had accidentally stumbled across the same wall of Twilight that had transformed him into a beast. In all honesty, he was thankful.

“I’m just... Worried about you,” you confessed, feeling a small sense of dread in the core of your being. Just thinking about what could happen to him if he didn’t take care of himself made your stomach churn.

A troubled look fell on his face, as if he was feeling guilty about making your eyes fill with concern. You inhaled deeply and pressed your lips on his forehead, not wanting your own uneasiness make him anxious.

“Rest now. I’ll keep watch.”

With a small nod, he allowed his heavy eyelids to close and it didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, soft snores escaping his mouth that was partially agape.

For the first time in days, he looked truly peaceful. His body relaxed, rid of any signs of stress or tension, the only movement being that of his chest, moving up and down due to his steady breathing. With a smile you continued running your digits through his hair, hoping to comfort him even in his dreams you could only hope were as tranquil as your current surroundings.

“Goodnight, Link.”

#loz #zelda #the legend of zelda #loz x reader #the legend of zelda x reader #legend of zelda #tloz #Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess #loz tp #twilight princess #twilight princess link #link x reader #tp link x reader #twilight princess x reader #twilight princess link x reader #zelda imagines #link imagines #loz imagines

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wtf-yoongi · 4 years

Text

Let me drive. / JJK

pairing | jungkook x reader

summary | road trip + california + your koo 🥺

genre/warnings | fluff + light smut + established relationship + kinda shy/quiet jungkook

words | 3,522

note | okay so i had this idea almost a year ago and wrote around 5 versions of this since then lol i guess the stuff i write is *already* very chill but i have to say this is the chillest

If you could, you’d freeze this moment. This very moment. Right here, right now. Just as the wind blows on your hair, just as everything around you smells like sand and the sea, just as Jungkook’s smooth driving lulls you to sleep.

You look at him then. Focused on the curves of the road, a small crease in between his eyebrows as he is forced to make a particularly sharp turn. You twist again to look outside the half-opened window and all you can see are the waves coming and going, somehow closer when the car shifts — and it calms you even further.

It’s hard to fight the heaviness of your eyelids, but you’re determined not to miss any second of this. Everything looks perfect, all around you — you can’t take it for granted. You should cherish it, imprint this in your memory, take pictures with Jungkook’s camera now that he’s busy driving and can’t do it himself. It’s within arm’s reach, but you can’t find it in you to grab it.

“You should take a nap,” Jungkook says with an unusual air in his voice. It is deep, but dreamy, and you wonder if you’ve actually fallen asleep. His right hand leaves the steering wheel to lightly touch your thigh. “You didn’t have enough sleep last night.”

“You’ve had just as much as me,” you protest, turning your body to seat properly again and blinking a few times to wake up, eyes opening as wide as possible in between each of them. “Do you think we can stop for a coffee somewhere? I bet you need it too.”

“I’m okay.”

“That’s what you always say.”

You end up convincing Jungkook you should stop somewhere, even if that somewhere is the nearest underwhelming gas station. He takes the opportunity to fill up the tank, later going inside to join you and look for the most appetizing caffeinated drink. It’s not his favorite, and neither is the one in your hands, but it’ll do for now. You take the can out of his long fingers to pay before he has a chance to protest.

“How far away are we now?”

Jungkook’s head tilts as he follows you outside, eyes wrinkling while his brain tries to remember what the GPS said before. “Not much, really. Maybe a little bit over half an hour.”

“Let me drive, then.”

He throws you the keys without thinking twice, but mostly because you know Jungkook wants to take pictures of the road — he’s never been good at hiding things and, with you in particular, there’s no point in trying anymore. He’s been driving since you left this morning and you wonder if you should’ve taken over after Pismo Beach.

Maybe you should have. He looks perfectly content as he sits on the passenger’s side and reaches for the camera not a heartbeat after putting on his seatbelt. That’s when you know you should’ve said something earlier — he’s not going to ask you to drive if he can keep going. It’s the way Jungkook’s mind works: selfless all the time.

That thought melts as soon as you look to your right and he’s pointing the camera at you, bright smile only partially covered by the device in his hands as you hear the shutter. For a second, all you can see is him. Suddenly, all you care about in the world is how you can make that smile last longer.

Is it too greedy to want it forever?

The rest of the way to Santa Barbara goes as smoothly as possible. Jungkook is right — it does take a little bit over half an hour to get there and you’re glad it’s early enough for you to explore the city tonight. As you cross what seems to be the main road, filled with life, shops and pretty lights, you and Jungkook make a silent agreement to come back as soon as you drop the bags in the house you’re staying in.

To be honest, Jungkook was excessive when he chose the place. He said he wanted it to be close to the beach, with a pool he could swim in at two in the morning if he wanted to — oh, yes, and private. He repeated that at least three times while you were researching. In the end, the house isn’t as close to the beach as he wished it to be, but he agreed the pool was worth it.

When you land your eyes on it for the first time, you’re sure Jungkook made the right call.

There’s a host there to welcome you and you follow Mrs. Johnson around as she shows you all the little corners of the house. She is surprised to know only two guests are staying when the house could easily fit six, but nods with a warm smile when you mention the pool situation and the way Jungkook’s eyes lighted up when he saw the pictures. You also can’t miss the way he tries to hide himself behind you when you say that or the hand that travels down to your waist. You couldn’t see him, but you bet a thousand dollars a shy smile is in full display — dimples and all.

It only takes a few minutes for you to drag your bags inside, drink a cup of water and leave again. The house isn’t very far from the main road you’ve seen earlier and a walk after a few hours of sitting inside a car sounded like a great idea. Just before leaving, you playfully pull Jungkook’s bucket hat further down as he sits his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. Then, again, you wish you could freeze the moment, but only if you could attach an audio file with his giggle and that playful stop it with it.

There’s a comfortable warmth from all around you as you walk. The breeze is hot and, although the temperature is bearable, Jungkook’s hand in yours becomes clammy in under five minutes — not that it is enough reason to let it go, it’s just not the most comfortable and definitely not as pleasant as the feeling of his hands intertwined with yours midwinter.

You can tell Jungkook is excited. His feet are light on the scolding asphalt and he’s paying extra attention to every detail his doe-like eyes are able to reach — almost as if he’s also looking to imprint this moment in his brain. In fact, he could be getting help with that by taking pictures, but decides to leave the camera hanging by its strap on his waist for reasons you don’t quite understand. You also don’t ask, too happy to raise questions about anything.

There’s something about this city that makes you feel welcomed. It’s much like the charming towns you’ve visited along the coast ever since leaving the busy San Francisco a couple of days ago, but there’s something particularly special about it. You were expecting it to be filled with tourists enjoying their summer day, streets buzzing with cars and no available parking spots whatsoever only to be met by a steady rhythm of people walking, chatting and passing you by without a second glance. It’s less busy and more easygoing than you anticipated.

Jungkook also seems to notice that.

“I like it here,” he says, echoing your thoughts with ease. Jungkook’s head turns all around, taking it all in before landing his curious eyes on you. “I think this one is my favorite so far.”

You can’t help the snort that leaves your nose. “You’ve said that for every place we’ve been to.”

“Well, every place has been better than the last. What do you want me to say?”

Just as the words leave his lips, the elegant lamps lining the sidewalk come to life. You notice you’re not the only ones with chins up and surprised eyes — suddenly, you can point to every tourist standing within this block as locals move on with their lives as if nothing happened.

“Honestly, how can this not be my favorite so far?” Jungkook asks rhetorically, finally letting go of your hand to reach for his camera. He turns it on without even looking at the device, snapping picture after picture until he’s satisfied with the framing and lighting. “These lights are so pretty…” He comments as he checks his viewfinder. “Let me take one of you just standing there.”

He takes a few steps back to fit you in frame and you hear the shutter many times before he’s back by your side.

“Why don’t we get something to eat?” He suggests, quick to take your hand again as soon as the camera is back to its original place.

“That’d be nice. Craving anything in particular?”

“Food,” he answers simply and with a smile. “Anything you want.”

You end up inside a diner eight minutes from where you were. The reviews online were great and you can see the place is popular by the amount of people sitting when it’s still so early in the night. The sun hasn’t completely set, but you can already feel the temperature drop a little — not too much, you think, to forgo the pool later.

Jungkook eats like he’s been starving the whole day. One entrée isn’t enough for him, so he orders two and you feel like you should save some room for the burger coming in later. His fingers are greasy from all the fried chicken, so are his lips, and you can’t help but smiling fondly at him when he looks up from the bone he just sucked on.

Right then, you wonder how in the world you ended up with him on the other side of the planet — the odds were never in your favor, but everything worked out somehow.

Ending up on the other side of the planet was the easy part.

The walk back to the house seems longer. Maybe it’s the weight of all the food in your stomach, maybe you’re finally feeling the need to rest after another busy day driving and seeing new places — maybe it’s both. Jungkook seems to feel it too, lazily swaying your connected (thoroughly cleaned) hands, dragging his feet and showing signs of running low on energy. For a moment, you think it’s possible he forgets about the pool and decides to just go to bed.

However tired, his eyes light up when he sees the pool area like it’s the first time and you have to admit it looks incredible. The water is so still it doesn’t look real and small decorative lamps illuminate it all around, creating a peaceful and inviting atmosphere. You can see how spent Jungkook is by the way his shoulders seem to be leaning forward a bit, but, still, he’s taking off his shirt and mumbling something about changing into a different pair of shorts.

Maybe he’s right. A quick dip in the water might just be the thing to relax your body and prepare it for the best sleep of your life.

Jungkook is already in the water when you come back in a bikini — with his back pressed to the pool, head resting on the edge and hair a wet mess. His eyes may be barely open, but he still sees you and raises a lazy hand out of the water to invite you in.

“It’s surprisingly not cold,” he assures you, a comforting smile on his lips. “Also, it’s not as deep, I’m just not really standing properly.”

A giggle leaves your lips as you move to sit on the edge right next to where he is, carefully letting a foot in to surprisingly — as Jungkook said — not immediately remove it because it’s too cold. You just wanted to sit there for a while getting used to the temperature before committing to a full dip, but he’s not having it.

“Come on,” Jungkook whines a little, clinging onto one of your legs. “We don’t have much time before I fall asleep in the water and drown.” He snorts and you can’t help falling for his shy smile. “I want to hold you in the water while we look at the stars together.”

“We can do that tomorrow if you want,” you suggest, trying not to let his words melt you completely while you move to fix a wet strand of hair in front of his eyes. “We’re staying here for one more night.”

However, in true Jungkook fashion, he doesn’t give up. “But I want it right now.”

And, in true you fashion, you give in to him.

The next morning, you wake up with a heavy and warm arm on top of your frame. The heat from Jungkook’s body on your back becomes too much as the hours pass and the room gets hit by an increasingly hotter sun. Unfortunately, it seems like your brain can’t get your limbs to move away from him without regaining consciousness.

It’s past 9 in the morning by the time you stretch an arm towards your phone. Groaning, you try reaching out for the air conditioner remote, but it’s maybe an inch too far. Before you can wiggle out of his grasp, though, you hear a low objection, grunt muffled by your own hair and skin.

Softly, you mutter a few words. “Just a second, Guk, I really need to get that.”

Subconsciously or not, Jungkook eases the grip he has around your middle and you’re finally able to hold the remote in your hands, lowering the temperature and increasing the speed. After the few beeps, a minute passes and you’re taking a deep breath, happy to feel the cool air around your limbs.

“You’re shivering now,” he says, surprising you after a long and comfortable silence. Blindly, he feels around for the white sheets, fixing them on your torso all the way to your chin.

“I’m not shivering,” you assure him, uncovering an arm in a stubborn act. “I have a t-shirt on, it’s fine.”

He hums. “I’ll have you out of that in around thirty minutes. Don’t count on it too much.”

You smile, turning to him, but Jungkook still has his eyes closed. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“I told you: thirty minutes. Don’t rush, we’re on vacation,” he justifies himself, words lazy just like the smirk that appears on his lips. “Let me wake up properly.”

True to his words, you both rest for a little while before Jungkook starts making his move. You would’ve guessed he had fallen back to sleep from how steadily he was breathing just a few seconds ago, but you couldn’t have been more wrong — not when his lips are connected to the column of your throat and you begin to feel the weight of his body on your left side.

Suddenly, your whole world is surrounded by him. All you can feel, see and smell is made of Jungkook, from his hair tickling your face to the firm hand wandering around like it’s discovering your body for the first time. You sigh and moan a little when he marks you particularly hard or when his right hand moves to place your leg around his waist and you just know he’s satisfied. Jungkook lives for that, for knowing he does that to you.

There’s a light and soft laugh coming out of his lips before he turns to the other side of your neck, head stopping midway to plant a chaste and quiet kiss on your lips.

“Promise me we’ll stay inside the whole day.” He’s just slightly out of breath, a feat that doesn’t go unnoticed by you — not after he’s taken care of your left side like that. He’s always so dedicated. “I really don’t want to get out of the house.”

“If you don’t want to.” The words would be perfectly accompanied by a shrug, but his body weight doesn’t let you. It’s just the right amount of pressure to feel him everywhere and, if you paid enough attention, you’d be able to sense his quick heartbeats too. “Yeah, we can stay in.”

“Good.”

You can see his eyes sparkle before he’s too close to focus, head dipping in to take your lips again. This time, however, the kiss is far from pure, delicately but firmly moving to open up your mouth and work restlessly until you’re completely out of breath.

You don’t know exactly when he starts slowly motioning his hips forward, senses overloaded with him everywhere, but you can feel your whole body respond to it. When you sigh yet again and his name comes out in a whimper, hand gripping his neck like your life depends on it, he knows.

“Let’s get you out of this,” he suggests, now a little bit past slightly out of breath as he proceeds to lift the t-shirt up and up until it’s free and thrown somewhere.

You couldn’t check the time then, but, if you could, you’d notice exactly thirty one minutes have passed.

“Have you even applied any sunscreen?” You call out from the inside of the house, holding a simple and delicious cup of cold water in your hands.

When you’re thirsty, everything will taste incredible.

“No!” He simply answers, ridding his hair of the excess water. “I’m only staying for twenty minutes while you shower, no need for sunscreen.”

“Yes need for sunscreen,” you disagree, sipping your water one last time before rummaging through your bag in search of the light blue bottle.

You immediately feel it in your skin as soon as you’re not covered by the roof of the house anymore. It is, after all, almost lunch time and the sun is at its peak — beautiful, majestic and burning hot. It only takes a few steps for you to reach the border of the pool and Jungkook gets the message, slowly walking towards you in the water.

“Dry your face and shoulders, please,” you demand at once, throwing him a small towel that was hanging around one of the lounge chairs. Luckily, he’s quick enough to catch it before it falls into the pool.

Still, Jungkook complains quietly. “It’s just twenty minutes, it’s really not a big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal until your cheeks are completely red,” you argue, squeezing a bit of the product on your fingers and soon applying it to his forehead and down his blushed nose. “Look, it’s already rosy from the walk we took. You should’ve asked for the sunscreen earlier.”

“Okay, okay,” he begrudgingly agrees just as he closes his eyes, your hands running close to the eyebrows. “You know what? We should’ve booked this place for one more day.”

“You think so?” You ask, finally bringing your hands back and closing the lid of the sunscreen bottle. “Don’t dip your head in the water for at least a few minutes, please,” you warn.

“Yeah. I mean, we’ve been to LA before, we know how it is. I think I like it here more,” Jungkook explains, swimming backwards towards the middle of the pool. “We’re staying in a hotel for two days before going back home. A hotel doesn’t have this.”

“The hotel has a pool.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes playfully. “You know what I mean. We can’t have this in a hotel.”

“We can just rest for two days,” you suggest. “Wake up and eat and nap and eat and…”

He laughs and twirls in the water. “I hate to interrupt you, but we’ll be late for checkout if you don’t go shower.”

“Right.”

There’s something about being on the road with him that brings you nothing but peace. It must be the perfect combination of clear skies, warm winds, the comfortable silence and the freedom of being on the road. Even with a destination in mind, it doesn’t feel like you need to follow it through. You can go anywhere, do anything, stop the car in the middle of nowhere and stare at the sea for an hour if you want to.

It almost makes you feel nostalgic for something that is happening right now.

The road gets busier and busier the closer you get to the city. Around here, you can see the mansions up in the hills, the exclusive restaurants here and there, and the fancy cars accelerating past the maximum speed displayed on the road signs of Malibu. Still, when you slowly press the brakes to stop on a red light, it feels like you’re in your own little world.

It’s always like this. He’s there and, suddenly, it hits. Everything around you melts, there’s nothing else. Sometimes, when Jungkook’s in the room, it almost looks like he shines — to you, there’s a bright, golden aura surrounding him. It’s warm, inviting and irresistible.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything when he sees the corners of your lips tug up without a reason, deciding to just mirror them. Once again, you find yourself wishing you could freeze this moment — this very moment. Just as his smile reaches his sparkling eyes and an airy laugh escapes his lips.

“Baby, the lights have just turned green.”

Read more ›› masterlist

#jeon jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fluff #jungkook imagine #jungkook scenarios #jungkook oneshot #jungkook x you #bts fanfic #bts imagines #jeon jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #yes the smut tag some of you were waiting for but don't get too excited

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laurenairay · 3 years

Text

Unexpected - K. Hayes

Summary: After being just friends with Kevin for over four years, can you ever be anything more?

Word Count: 10.2k

Warnings: a little angst, a lot of fluff, a smidgen of smut, friends to lovers because that’s my jam

A/N: so this originally started as a blurb which got mildly out of hand and turned into this fic. I have repeated the scene from the blurb to keep the flow the same. I have no regrets.

This is particularly inspired from Talk About by Seaforth (thanks @antoineroussel!) and Just Friends by Virginia to Vegas (thanks @broadstbroskis!)

@danglesnipecelly @princessphilly @chicagoblackhawkslover96 @himbos-on-ice @whoeverineedtobe @flybabyfly @ipuckwithhockey @antoineroussel @babytkachuks @broadstbroskis @texanstarslove @tippedbykreider @thebookofmags @horsesandhockeyplayers @denis-scorianov @lulucanwrite @rangersftflyers @notaccurateornice @pandorasbox2020 @mattytkachuk19 @whatishockey @no-pucks-given @fanfics-for-the-hockey-fan @troubatrain @joelsfarabee @nuenyyx @miracleonice87

A party was never just a simple party when Kevin Hayes was involved. Music was pounding, beer was flowing, shots were poured, and weed was an easy haze on the back porch. You had no idea what the occasion was for one of your oldest friends to be throwing this shindig, but you weren’t complaining. Hanging out with him and relaxing after a long hard day was infinitely better than sitting at home and eating cold pizza. Again.

People always teased you about being so close with Kevin, always hinting that there must be something more between you, but you just laughed it off, knowing that he would never be interested. How could he? He had the perfect hockey WAGs lining up in queues to flirt with him – and you were just his friend. You’d known each other since you both lived in Tribeca years ago, and there had never been anything to even hint at anything more than friends. He’d never flirted with you outside of his natural charm. He’d never made a move on you in the slightest. He’d never shown the smallest bit of interest in anything other than platonic – so you knew how he felt. And to be honest, his friendship was amazing and it was something you never wanted to lose, so why would you put yourself out there when you already knew what the answer would be?

No, being friends with Kevin Hayes was exactly where you were meant to be.

You’d spent a few hours with a rotating cast of Flyers and their better halves, drinking and sharing stories about your mutual friend, but it had been a while since you’d seen him. At least a couple of non-Kevin hours. So what if you got a little needy when you were drinking? How could you not want a hug from your beautiful friend? No, bad drunk brain. Crossing that line was never worth it.

You still wanted that hug though.

So bidding the other drunk partygoers adieu, you wandered about the house in search of Kevin, coming up empty in every room…until you spotted smoke outside the kitchen window. Hah, of course. You knew how much he loved to wind down with a blunt or two. His easygoing nature was one of the things you loved most about him.

Putting down your empty drink, you walked outside, spotting Kevin and Nolan lounging on the outside sofas, Nolan with a blunt in his hand.

“Hey! You’re here!” Kevin grinned.

You shook your head fondly, wafting the pungent smoke out of your face.

“I’ve been here for hours, Kev. You’ve already seen me,” you said, smiling.

Kevin pouted, and Nolan just snickered, making you laugh.

“Weed always makes you forgetful,” you mused, sitting down on the seating next to him.

“Nuh-uh I don’t forget everything,” Kevin shrugged, turning to face you properly, “Not the important things. Like the fact that I love you, you know that right?”

Your jaw dropped slightly as his words hit you. What the everloving fuck? Why would he joke like that?

“Goddamn Kev, how high are you?” you asked, frowning.

Without waiting for him to answer, you looked over at Nolan, who just shrugged.

“I don’t know, he’s pretty baked. But I’m going to let you deal with all of that,” Nolan grimaced, waving a hand in Kevin’s general direction.

You rolled your eyes as he quickly passed Kevin the blunt and walked back inside. Yeah, thanks for the help.

“Why did Patty leave?” Kevin asked, frowning.

“Because he’s allergic to emotions? I don’t know. Maybe he just knows that you’re talking shit and he doesn’t want to deal with it,” you muttered.

“I’m not talking shit,” Kevin shot back, “I love you,”

“No you don’t,” you said, rolling your eyes again.

Seriously? Where had this come from? This wasn’t fair, he couldn’t say that when you knew it wasn’t true. Where had he gotten this lot of weed from? Clearly it didn’t agree with him.

“Yes I do! I know my own feelings,” Kevin insisted.

“Right, yeah, sure you do,” you sighed.

You were neither drunk enough nor high enough for this conversation. This was…not how you expected this evening to go. And just like that, your good mood was ruined.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Kevin asked softly.

“Not even in the slightest, Kev,” you said, smiling sadly.

Of course you didn’t. Why, after all this time, would he be saying the words you most wanted to hear from him? There was no logic behind it – there was no way it could be true. He’d never ever shown any hint of this to be true.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he said firmly.

And then he placed his hand on your thigh, making you inhale sharply, the warmth of his large hand sending tingles through your body. No.

“This is not the time or place, Kevin,” you said shortly, “You are stoned out of your fucking mind,”

“You said my full name. You never say my full name,” he said sadly.

Of course that’s what he picked up out of that. Clearly he wasn’t going to get any easier to talk to…and while normally that made for some pretty fun conversation, tonight it wasn’t going to happen. And you couldn’t sit around and listen to more of this.

“I’m just going to go,” you sighed, nudging his hand off your thigh and standing upright.

“What? No!” Kevin said, eyes wide and sad.

“I can’t,” you said, forcing a smile, “I can’t stay and hear this, when I know you don’t mean it when you’re sober,”

“But…”

“I’ll send Nolan back out, okay? I’ll…talk to you later, Kev,” you said firmly, interrupting him.

Without waiting for another answer, you quickly walked back into the house, heartbeat racing in your ears and a lump in your throat. At least you didn’t have to go far to look for Nolan – he was standing just inside in the kitchen.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he frowned.

You just shook your head, smiling thinly, not wanting to go into it. “I’m going to go,”

“But he…”

“Kev will be fine – you don’t mind going back out there with him, right?” you said, interrupting.

Nolan pressed his lips together but shook his head. “No, I don’t mind,”

“Good. Good. Um, I’m sure I’ll see you around?” you offered.

Would you? Who knows. How long would you even need before you could see Kevin again without your heart aching?

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Nolan nodded.

You missed the determined look in the younger man’s eyes as you walked away, too intent on locating your jacket without giving in to the tears that were threatening to fall. Sleep, sobering up and some distance – that would help, right?

01:21

From: Kevin

Why did you leave?

Please come back?

01:57

From: Kevin

I meant it.

I swear I meant it.

Please call me.

03:00

Missed call – Kevin

10:17

From: Kevin

Fuck I fell asleep.

Are you ignoring me?

Please call me when you get this.

10:35

From: Kevin

I get it if you don’t love me back.

But please don’t ignore me, I can’t take that.

Please call me?

We need to talk. Please.

10:55

From: Kevin

Please?

11:00

To: Kevin

Kev, I can’t do this.

It’s too much.

Please just give me time and space.

11:02

From: Nolan

I’ve taken Kev’s phone off him.

His sad face is too much.

I know you asked for space and I’ll make sure he gives it to you.

But please, just think over what he said?

You know he doesn’t say shit he doesn’t mean, not when it’s important.

11:17

To: Nolan

Yeah, okay. I’ll think it over.

Mornings were generally your worst time of day. But this morning in particular was a terrible one. The slight bleurgh of lingering sleep made you feel groggy enough, but nothing that a quick shower and a slice of buttered toast couldn’t fix. No, this morning was terrible because your heart was still aching from three days ago. You still had no idea what Kevin was playing at, acting like that around you, but it hurt and you knew you weren’t going to be able to forget it any time soon. Kevin’s increasingly desperate text messages and the single message from Nolan hung over you like a bad shadow, but you knew were right about not just giving in straight away – you were still emotional enough now as it was, and you knew it wouldn’t have been a good idea to see Kevin immediately. No, space was exactly what you needed, even if it hurt.

Your second cup of coffee woke you up enough at least to not leave you in a pit of despair. Like Nolan had asked, you’d thought about Kevin’s words over and over again. His declaration of love, out of nowhere. His confusion and sadness and fucking desperation. You know he doesn’t say shit he doesn’t mean, not when it’s important. It still didn’t give you the answer, any answer. Because in your heart, there was still that little whisper of doubt, telling you it wasn’t true, not really. And unless you were 100% sure, there was no way you could take that chance, not with Kevin. His friendship was too important in your life to risk not having it at all, so if it meant needing time to get over him and drag yourself out of this swirling despair then you would take it.

Despair was for people who didn’t have a life to get on with. You had lived long enough without Kevin in your life before you’d met him, and you could damn well succeed in living without his presence for a couple of weeks or so. At least until you’d built up those walls again.

It had been three days and the struggle was real.

Around 9am, you were jolted out of your thoughts by a series of knocks on your front door. With a frown, you walked over to the entrance hallway, and peeked through the peep-hole, only to see Kevin. What the fuck? Why was he here?

He had a sad but determined look on this face, you could see that much – fuck, was he going to say he didn’t mean anything he said that night? That now he’d thought about it properly, it wasn’t real? It was bad enough hearing his emotions from him when high as a kite, but you couldn’t bear for him to admit it was fake when he was sober. But maybe it was what you deserved, seeing as you’d asked for time and space. Fuck. No, you’d definitely done the right thing for you…but had you done the right thing for Kevin?

What you did know for sure was that you couldn’t leave him standing outside, when he knew full well that you had no real plans today. He knew your schedule too well for that. So with a deep breath, you put on a smile and opened the door. There he stood, eyes warm albeit sleepy, that hair so perfectly tousled. Why did he have to hit every single tickbox on your list? How was that fair?

“Look who’s up before midday on an off-day,” you teased, “What are you doing here?”

Kevin smiled at your teasing, but it was as fake as you knew your smile was. Fuck. “I was in the neighbourhood and figured I’d see what you were up to. Mind if I come in?”

Ouch. He definitely wasn’t in the neighbourhood, he was here for one reason only. To talk. Fuck.

But you nodded, letting him past you into your apartment anyway. He’d given you three days’ space, like you’d asked, it was only fair that you let him say his piece now right?

“Coffee?” you asked, shutting the door behind him.

“Yes please,” Kevin groaned, nodding.

Your smile slipped a little as you headed to the kitchen, you heart already aching with the preparation of it being broken completely, but you managed to keep yourself together as you reached for the coffee pot, pouring him a large mug of the caffeinated lifeblood in silence.

“Here you go,” you said as cheerfully as you could manage.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling.

He sat down at the kitchen island, looking up at you with those beautiful big eyes, until you sat down opposite him.

“I still mean it, y’know,” he said bluntly.

You frowned, not understanding. “Mean what?”

“Mean what I said that night. That I love you,”

Oh God. Fuck. Your breath hitched in your throat, your lips parting in surprise. What…what was he doing?

“Kev, please don’t…”

“No, I’m going to,” Kevin interrupted, uncharacteristically solemn, “Because you seem to have some pretty incorrect ideas in your head and I need to set them straight,”

You swallowed heavily, biting your bottom lip. How were you even supposed to respond to that? Kevin saw the anxious look on your face clear as day, his own seriousness softening to a sad smile.

“Patty said you looked pretty upset when you left that night,” he said softly.

You shook your head, desperate for a sliver of control. “I wasn’t upset, I-”

“Even if he hadn’t spent the last three days ripping into me, I know you were upset. You’ve never just left like that,” Kevin said firmly.

Normally, you hated being interrupted. But in this case, you really had nothing else you could say. Nothing that you could say, not when he knew you so well.

“No, I haven’t,” you sighed, leaning back in your chair.

“I’m sorry that me confessing how I felt made you leave but I wasn’t messing around! I was trying gather the high courage to tell you, after all this time!” Kevin said desperately.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

He was serious, wasn’t he? Of course he had to bulldoze right through, in typical Kevin Hayes style.

But Kevin took your silence the wrong way.

“How could you not have known?” he frowned.

“How could I possibly have known, Kev? I’ve seen you flirting with women before – and you’re never like that around me. How could I have known that you wanted anything more than friendship when you’ve never acted like it?” you retorted.

Kevin’s cheeks flushed, and he ducked his head briefly, before he looked back up at you. Fuck, he looked a little sad? Like...like he was about to genuinely open up his heart. Fuck.

“I always thought you weren’t interested in me. Why would you be interested in dumb stoner Kevin? I figured if I could only ever have you as a friend then I would latch onto that, because having you in my life in any way is so much better than not having you in my life at all,” he said sadly.

You had never heard him this eloquent before. To be honest, it made your heart ache all over again. But he was never like this…why now?

“Are you still high?” you asked, frowning.

Kevin laughed dryly, shaking his head. “Why do I have to be high to tell you how I feel?”

“Because that’s literally the only time you’ve ever said it before?” you said, raising an eyebrow.

Kevin groaned softly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

“You know meaningful stuff doesn’t come all that easily to me,” he huffed.

“I also know you’re not just Kevin-the-hockey-playing-himbo-from-Boston,” you pointed out, smiling slightly.

Kevin laughed softly. “You always have figured me out pretty well,”

“I’m just not a mind reader,” you mused.

He laughed again, nodding his head. “I guess I just…I saw you and I had to say it. I’ve liked you for years, sweetheart, ever since we lived in Tribeca. And I thought, maybe, just maybe, you getting your job transferred to Philly meant that it was finally our time. But it never happened. Maybe it was the weed. Maybe it was the weed and how beautiful you looked combined that actually took down those barriers which have kept me from blurting out my feelings in the past. But I swear to you, I meant every word,”

Sweetheart. Wow. Never had that word affected you more. You swallowed heavily, looking down at your hands. It was true that you’d always been able to read him well – and he was being so sincere right now that it had your stomach tied in knots. He really meant it, didn’t he? He really meant…that he loves you. That he’s loved you for years. Fuck.

It was everything you’d hoped to hear, and you’d spent the last three days trying to convince yourself he didn’t mean it. But he really did mean it, didn’t he?

“Say it again,” you murmured.

The grin that spread across Kevin’s lips sent a shiver up your spine.

“I love you,” he said clearly, firmly, looking directly into your eyes.

Your breath hitched in your throat, butterflies exploding in your stomach. Fuck that was so good to hear. Holy fucking shit.

“Kevin…” you whispered helplessly.

“I gotta know…because I’m holding onto a scrap of hope that you feel the same…do you…”

He trailed off, his voice a little desperate, a little lost, and you found yourself nodding like an idiot, tears springing to your eyes. If he could be brave, then so could you.

“Yes, Kev, I do. I love you so much,” you admitted.

Kevin laughed in triumph, a little incredulous, and he quickly stood up from the island, taking one large step towards you, and tugging you to stand up on your feet too.

“Fuck, fuck, can I kiss you?” he asked, happiness sparkling in his eyes.

You found yourself laughing, but nodded and clutched at his sweater, holding on in case your weak knees gave out on you. Kevin grinned, resting his forehead against yours briefly, before he closed the distance between you with a firm kiss. You couldn’t help but melt into his arms, kissing him back just as eagerly, throwing your arms around his neck a little desperately as his tongue slid against yours. His hands went to your hips and he easily picked you up to place you on the kitchen counter, and you gasped into his mouth at how effortless the motion was, moaning a little as he just stepped right in between your legs. It felt like second nature to hook your legs around his waist, pulling your bodies even closer together, earning a soft moan from the man that sent a pulse of heat right between your thighs. Fuck.

“Kev, wait, we shouldn’t…” you gasped, tilting your head back to break the kiss.

Because as much as you wanted to hop right into bed with him, you needed to let him know that this wasn’t all this was for you. It couldn’t be.

“Fuck, you gotta know this is more than sex for me, right?” Kevin groaned, eyes a little wild as he looked down at you.

How did he always know what to say?

“Again, I’m not a mind reader,” you laughed.

Kevin laughed as well, ducking his head to press gentle kisses into the soft skin of your neck.

“I want to take you out on so many dates. I want to tell my mom about you properly rather than just mention you in passing. I want to ignore Patty crowing in the locker room that he gave me the kick up the ass that I needed. I want to tell Brady and Jimmy that I finally took a chance. I want to show you off to the world as my girlfriend,” Kevin murmured between kisses, finishing with a nip to your earlobe.

Fuck. That was all that you wanted, and he was offering it up on a silver platter.

“I want that too,” you gasped, tilting your head more to the side.

You felt Kevin smile against your skin, nipping at you again before he lifted his head to look at you properly.

“Now can I kiss you again?” Kevin asked hopefully.

You laughed but nodded, threading your fingers through his messy curls. “You can kiss me any time you want,”

Kevin grinned and did just that.

Pulling into the practice arena, Kevin realised he still had a stupid smile on his face. He’d spent all morning at your apartment, mostly making out on the sofa with a little talking dotted throughout, and he’d only been able to tear himself away because Nolan had texted to remind him about the mandatory afternoon practice today. Obviously he would much rather have stayed with you, especially now that he knew what it was like to kiss you, how your lips felt against his, how easy it was to hold you in his arms, but if he skipped practice there would be hell to pay.

That, and he now knew how easily he could get carried away, how easily he could get lost in you. He hadn’t lied when he said that this was more than sex for him. Loving you was everything – overwhelming, all-consuming and wonderful – and there was no way he was going to let sex ruin that. As much as he already knew it would be incredible. He’d waited four years to be in your bed more than platonically, he could wait a little longer. Especially now that he knew you loved him too.

Fuck, you were finally his. He could finally call you his girlfriend. Fuck.

Kevin was so lost in his thoughts as he parked his car, that he didn’t notice a familiar figure walking up to him, and flinched as they knocked on the window. Nolan. Fuck.

“Way to give me a heart attack, baby cat,” Kevin groaned as he got out of the car.

“You made me catch a lift with Teeks last minute – now we’re even,” Nolan smirked.

Kevin just laughed, rolling his eyes as he pulled his bag out of his car and locked it. When he turned back to look at his friend, he saw that Nolan looked incredibly smug, almost unbearably so, and steeled himself for an interrogation. He hadn’t exactly been forthcoming in his text earlier to say that Nolan would have to find his own way to practice. Oops.

“Please tell me you came from your New York girl’s place,”

Hah, your New York girl. When you’d first moved job to Philadelphia, Kevin had referred to you as ‘a girl friend from New York’, to try to play it cool, to try to hide how excited he was that you were finally going to be reunited…and the name had stuck. Pretty much everyone on the team, including some who’d been traded away, referred to you as ‘your New York girl’, mainly because of how red Kevin had blushed when Claude had called you that when you’d first met the team.

The team liked teasing their usually-unflappable teammate.

You liked that Kevin talked about you in the first place.

Kevin just liked that people had always called you his.

“Yeah, I did,” Kevin shrugged, trying to play it cool.

But Nolan just rolled his eyes, not having any of it.

“You two talked right? Like, actually talked,” Nolan asked firmly.

That and other things. But Nolan didn’t need to know that. Kevin just smirked, nodding, and laughed as Nolan whooped.

“I swear to god I’m not getting those three days back, you owe me so bad. And I’m claiming victory for this matchmaking,” Nolan grinned.

“Meddling more like it,” Kevin mused, rolling his eyes, “You got the result you wanted though,”

“I did?”

“You did,”

“Fucking finally,” Nolan groaned.

“Finally what?”

Kevin turned his head to see Claude walking up behind them and winced. If Nolan kept his mouth shut then maybe Kevin had a chance of not being ridiculed for the entirety of practice…

“Hayesy ditched me to finally talk about his feelings,” Nolan smirked.

Oof.

“With your New York girl? Fucking finally,” Claude grinned.

One day that nickname would fade. One day.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Better late than never,” Kevin mused.

“Only took you a few years,” Nolan snorted.

Four long miserable years. But who was counting.

“Well I’m glad you finally took a chance. Fuck knows it’s been painful enough watching the two of you dance around each other,” Claude teased, before his face suddenly went serious, “She returned your feelings, right? Like, fuck-”

“She did,” Kevin said, interrupting, “She loves me too,”

Saying it out loud like that made him grin, earning laughter from his two teammates.

“Thank fuck for that,” Claude huffed, teasing with a grin of his own.

Thank fuck indeed.

From: Kevin

Dinner at mine tonight?

I’ve got that wine you like…

To: Kevin

You had me at wine.

What time do you want me?

From: Kevin

I always want you.

I’ll have food ready for 7pm.

But come over whenever!

To: Kevin

You ridiculous flirt.

Can’t wait to see you.

Kevin’s messages kept a smile on your face for the rest of your work day, and you didn’t bother going back to your apartment after work – heading straight to his place was all you could think about, so that’s all that you did. And the smile that he greeted you with when he opened the door – bright, genuine, happy – told you that you’d made the right decision.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Kevin murmured, tugging you against his body.

You couldn’t help but laugh, leaning into his hold as he shut the door behind you. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” you grinned.

Kevin grinned back. “Good to know,”

You rolled your eyes fondly, leaning up on your tiptoes to press your lips to his in a soft kiss, smiling at the happy noise he made as you embraced sweetly, your arms sliding up his chest and around his neck. Fuck, even just knowing that you could do this now, kiss him whenever you wanted, sent a shiver up your spine, let alone how good it felt to brush your tongue against his. It was like the floodgates had opened – now that you could kiss him, touch him, hold him, you never wanted to stop. You took every opportunity, and Kevin was exactly the same – maybe even more so, with the way his hands always seemed to stray to your ass.

The kisses eventually slowed to a few gentle pecks, Kevin looking a little stunned even as he tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“Hi,” you murmured.

“Hi,” he said back, a little helplessly.

Both of you laughed, Kevin resting his forehead against yours briefly before he stepped backwards a little, taking both of your hands with his.

“I gotta finish up some dinner prep, but I can pour you a glass of wine while you wait?” he suggested.

Sweet, thoughtful man.

“That sounds perfect to me,” you nodded, squeezing his hands in agreement.

Dinner was perfect. Wonderful. Incredible. It was only a simple pasta dish, but full of vegetables and spices and flavour, and the fact that Kevin had clearly poured time and effort into making this for the two of you made it even more special. Sitting across from him at the dinner table, each talking about your days, Kevin making your sides ache with laughter…it was all you could ever have dreamed of.

Was it all too good to be true?

That niggling thought followed you to the sofa after you’d finished eating, Kevin joining you with two fresh glasses of wine. He spotted your creased forehead and frown immediately, like you feared knew he would.

“What’s that face for?” Kevin mused, raising an eyebrow.

Sometimes it was a blessing how easily he could read you. But you weren’t sure if now was one of those times. As his smile started to slip, you took a deep breath, steeling yourself. There was no point in hiding your thoughts from him. Honesty and communication were a good thing, right?

“I guess I’m just nervous, that’s all,” you admitted.

Kevin frowned to match you, his eyes immediately going serious. “Nervous? Why?”

“Things are just different now. You know that,”

Kevin’s frown immediately shifted to a smile, making your heart beat a little faster. His faith in you was mindblowing. “It’s just you and me, how it’s always been. How it always should be. Nothing’s different about that,”

But still you shook your head, smiling fondly. “I know you as Kevin-the-friend. I don’t know you as Kevin-the-boyfriend. It’s whole new territory…and I have a horrible thought in my mind saying that it’s all too good to be true,”

Kevin’s face fell again at your words, and he quickly put his wine glass on the coffee table, shaking his head as he reached out to take one of your hands in his. Your breath hitched in your throat at the emotion in his eyes, like it genuinely hurt him to hear the words that came out of your mouth, and you put your own glass down on the floor with a wince.

“Are you…having second thoughts? About…us?” he said quietly, like the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

You quickly shook your head – you knew that wasn’t it. Not even close. But still…

“What is it then?” Kevin asked, confused.

Here goes nothing. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel real, us being together. Like I’m going to wake up and you’re going to want to only be just friends. It scares me,”

“Shit,” Kevin groaned, eyes closing briefly.

When his eyes reopened his eyes to look at you once more, the fire in his expression startled you…but also made your mouth go dry. That intensity was a good look on him, one you hadn’t seen directed your way before. Fuck.

“Sweetheart, I can’t predict the future. Hell, I can barely figure out what to make for breakfast, let alone where our relationship is going to go. But I do know one thing for certain,” he said firmly.

You swallowed heavily, letting out a shaky breath. “And what’s that?”

“That I want us to have a future. That I am all in. I’m putting my whole heart into this baby, and I just wish I knew what to do so you would believe me,”

Fuck, you did believe him. You absolutely did believe him. How could you not, when you could feel his heart so strongly?

“Kev, I…” you trailed off, a little helpless, not sure where to start.

“What can I do?” he asked, eyes a little desperate.

“I don’t know! I wish I knew. I want this to work so badly,” you murmured.

“All we can do is put the hard work in, right?” he said firmly, eyes bright and shining, “Like, if we both try with our whole hearts, then it’s got to be worth it, right? We’ve been friends for years – that isn’t going to change. We have that foundation already. Now we’re just taking that next step, learning more about each other, rather than starting something scary from scratch,”

Your eyes filled with tears at his heartfelt words, and you found yourself nodding before you could stop yourself.

“It’s still scary…but it could be scarier,” you agreed, biting your bottom lip.

Kevin nodded, smiling encouragingly, to which you let out a shaky breath.

“And no matter what, we’re in this together, yeah? We’ve got each other, more so than ever before,” he said softly.

Your eyes dropped to where his thumb ran back and forth over your hand, a small smile spreading across your lips. “I like the sound of that,”

Kevin’s shoulders seemed to relax a little, like he was letting out tension, sending a guilty pang through your body. Fuck, there you go, making him feel bad again.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, shrinking back a little.

“Hey, no, no apologies. I’m glad you told me,” he replied, shaking his head, “I’d rather we talked about stuff like this than let it build up to something ugly, y’know?”

He had a good point – you couldn’t imagine having a nasty all-out fight with Kevin, and you didn’t want to. He was one of your oldest friends for a reason, and you didn’t want to lose that through a stupid fight, no way.

“Same goes for you too, yeah? You can…should talk to me about anything that worries you,” you said softly.

Kevin smiled, nodding. “Alright, it’s a deal,”

He reached out to pick up his wine glass from the table, holding it towards you in a ‘cheers’ motion, making you laugh. But you picked up your glass from the floor anyway, and clinked it with his, both of you taking a long drink. Kevin was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment, before he quirked a smile your way.

“Let me take you out, show you what Kevin-the-boyfriend is like,” he suggested, “Let me show you that this new thing between us is going to be something amazing,”

How could you say no to that?

“I’d like that,” you grinned, relaxing into the sofa a bit more, “I already know I love Kevin-the-friend…so I think I need to meet Kevin-the-boyfriend properly,”

And as stupid as it felt saying those words out loud, you knew you were right – you needed to see this next stage in your relationship clearly, to banish away those niggling doubts. It was still Kevin, right? Just…more.

Kevin stretched his leg out onto the sofa, nudging your hip with his foot with a big smile on his face, nudging nudging nudging until you gripped his ankle tightly with your free hand, raising an eyebrow. All you got in return was his eyebrows wiggling at you, a stupid grin on his face.

“This is going to be great, you’ll see,” Kevin said cheerfully.

You were counting on it.

A first date was always something to be nervous about, right? Shaky hands, pounding heart, butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms…it was all natural, right? Because you were experiencing all of these things while you got ready for your date with Kevin.

But was it truly nerves? You weren’t nervous as in apprehensive. No, not at all. Any time you spent with Kevin was always full of warmth and laughter, even when you were just friends, and you knew that tonight would be so different. No, it was nervous as in excited. Nervous butterflies? Shaky giddiness? Whatever it was, it was more than a little overwhelming, but it only took one glance at the last text Kevin sent you to keep a smile on your face.

From: Kevin

I can’t wait to see you, beautiful 💖

Simple, but effective. He always knew what to do and say, even when he didn’t know he was doing it. So instead of getting cold feet or freaking out, all you did was put on your favourite playlist and bop around while you got yourself ready. You’d already gotten your usual leg and bikini wax this morning, having planned to wear a slinky black dress with bare legs, and as soon as you shimmied into the dress you knew it was the right choice. Figure hugging without being clingy, sexy as well as classy – a little black dress is a classic for a reason. After putting on a little makeup and a pair of your favourite heels, you were ready.

Kevin had insisted on picking you up so he could drive the two of you to the restaurant, rather than meeting there, and he arrived to yours right on time. But as you opened the front door of your apartment to greet him, his face was a little stunned, and he was uncharacteristically silent. Huh.

“Everything okay, Kev?” you asked hesitantly.

He quickly nodded, the stunned look on his face slipping into a wide smile.

“You just look so beautiful. Caught me off guard,” he shrugged.

You felt your cheeks heat up with warmth, and you batted your hand at his chest, making him laugh. Ridiculous man.

“Well, you scrub up pretty well yourself,” you teased.

A crisp white button-up shirt, a nice fitted pair of jeans and tailored jacket? Such a good look on him. Kevin just grinned at your words, ducking his head to kiss you softly, making your breath hitch in your throat. Yeah, this was going to be a good night.

“Ready to go?” he asked, as he broke the embrace.

“Yeah, let me just grab a jacket,”

The drive to the restaurant was short and smooth – a Spanish tapas place, on recommendation from Claude – and you were shown to your table immediately, Kevin pulling out your chair for you with a bright smile on his face.

“Welcome! Here are your menus – would you like to see the drinks menu too, or do you know what you would like?”

You looked from the waiter to Kevin with a shrug, to see him looking at you with a hopeful smile. Huh. He already planned this out, didn’t he? So you just nodded at him and smiled back.

“Can we have a glass of Rosado each?” Kevin asked, smiling effortlessly.

“Of course, I will be back momentarily,”

As the waiter walked away, you raised an eyebrow at Kevin, who just shrugged a little bashfully.

“I never have any clue which wine goes with what. So I asked Claude when he recommended this place – a few of the guys around us chimed in with their thoughts too, and apparently Rosado goes with tomato-y garlic-y things. I figured that’s the majority of what we’d be eating, so I hope that’s okay” Kevin explained.

The fact that he had put so much thought into tonight, asking his friends and really researching, made your heart clench, and it was all you could do to nod. He really was so sweet – no-one had ever put in this much effort for you before.

A silence fell over you for a moment, not awkward, but still not fully comfortable, until you looked at Kevin and the both of you huffed out a laugh.

“This is weird, right?” you giggled.

“Nah, not if we don’t let it be,” he shrugged, smiling.

His ease and nonchalance was something to be jealous of, that much was true.

“So confident, Mr Hayes,” you mused, raising an eyebrow.

“Easy to be confident when I’ve got the most beautiful person in the room sitting opposite me,” he replied smoothly.

Oh so smooth.

“Kev…” you groaned, hiding your face with a hand.

“Come on, I’ve been wanting to say these things for years! Indulge me,” he teased.

Years. The very thought of it sent a shiver down your spine.

“You think I haven’t had my moments of weakness? Where I’ve thought about us over the years?” you asked simply, raising an eyebrow as you lowered your hand back into your lap.

Kevin inhaled sharply, making you smile. Good.

“I like that you have. Thought about us, I mean. I just can’t believe how stupid we’ve been. We’ve wasted so much time,” Kevin sighed.

You reached across the table, resting your hand on top of his with a smile. “We’re here now, right? That’s all that matters,”

“Yeah exactly,” he nodded.

Then he bit his bottom lip, as if he was hesitating on something, making you smile a little more.

“What is it, Kev?” you asked softly.

He stayed silent for another beat or two, before he looked at you intensely.

“I see my future with you, sweetheart,” he blurted. Oh wow. “And yeah, maybe that’s too soon to say, but this isn’t some brand new fresh thing – this has been building for years, and now that we’re finally together, it just feels so right, y’know?”

Your heart clenched at his sweet words, and you couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your lips. Fuck. Who knew a hockey player could be so open and in touch with their feelings? Well, it was Kevin after all. Might as well speak your own thoughts too.

“It does feel so right. I’ve never felt anything for anyone like I feel for you,” you admitted.

Kevin’s answering smile was a little stunned and a little helpless. “Fuck, same. Same for me,��

You ignored the butterflies filling your stomach, looking down at the menu in front of you to stop your smile going stupid. What was it about this man that made you feel so different? His honesty? His smile? His laugh? Fuck, all of that and more. All you did know was that you didn’t want it to stop.

The date continued on to become the best date you had ever been on. Not that you were surprised – it was Kevin after all, and you already knew there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do if it would make you smile. And you were quickly learning how true it was for you too. Having all that adoration, that attention, that smile focused solely on you? It was addictive, and you didn’t want it directed towards anyone else. You wanted his whole heart, you knew that much already, and you could only hope that he wanted the same from you.

Both of you only had one glass of wine with your food, as Kevin was driving you home, and by the time the two of you had reached the front door of your apartment (Kevin had insisted on walking you to your front door, even though it was an apartment building), you felt giddy. Giddy and ridiculous and unbelievably happy. This was it, this was what you had been waiting for. This moment, this knowledge, that same confidence in this thing with Kevin that he’d had all along. You only wished it hadn’t taken you so long.

But you were here now, that’s all that mattered. You and Kevin, together. As it should be.

As you unlocked your front door, you felt yourself pausing in the doorway, Kevin making a questioning noise as you stopped moving. You bit your bottom lip gently, before taking a deep breath to steel your nerves. “Do you want to come in?” you asked, looking up into those beautiful blue eyes.

Kevin’s lips parted in surprise, a stunned expression filling his face.

“Like, come in come in?” he asked, voice a little breathy.

The sheer want in his voice made you shiver, and you knew you’d made the right decision in asking him. You could basically taste the tension between you as you nodded slowly, Kevin swaying forward as if he couldn’t help himself.

But then he stopped, freezing still, making you frown.

“Are you sure? Like, it’s not too soon?” he forced out, eyes a little wild.

So you quickly shook your head, smiling at him checking.

“Kev, it’s us, right?”

He’d been saying it for weeks, that being together was just a next step in your strong foundation of friendship, so both of you giving in to that obvious desire wouldn’t ruin anything at all. You wanted him…he wanted you…so why not take things up another notch?

“Yeah, it’s us. Endgame, baby,” Kevin grinned.

And just like that, the tension burst like a balloon, making you laugh. Yeah, this was the man you were in love with alright.

“Come on loverboy,” you laughed, rolling your eyes fondly, “Let’s not give my neighbours a show,”

Kevin smirked, wiggling his eyebrows as he followed you into your apartment, making you laugh all over again. There was none of that nervous apprehension you’d felt with other guys before – it was all just excitement, fizzing and buzzing through your skin, and your mind swirled with ideas.

Stripping him down slowly, piece by piece.

Getting your mouth on him, every inch of his body, especially his cock.

Having him pin you down on your bed, all gorgeous 6ft5 of him surrounding you in the best way.

Fuck.

“I’ve been thinking about getting my hands on you since I saw you in that dress,”

Kevin’s soft words tore you out of your lustful thoughts, and you moaned softly at the shiver it sent up your spine. Fuck yes, you were getting laid tonight and it was going to be good.

“Then how about you get your hands on me?” you suggested, corner of your lips lifting up in a smirk.

He wasted no time in pressing you into the nearest wall, barely making it out of the entrance hallway, and you laughed as his hands went straight to your ass.

“Feeling better?” you mused, toying with the top button of his shirt.

This wasn’t a fiery desperate rush, crashing about, rough and riling up – no this was a slow build-up of lust and want, much like your relationship had been a slow build-up. No, this was a slow seduction, sweet and all-consuming, bodies moving in sync and taking what they wanted. And you couldn’t fucking wait.

“Hmm, a little,” Kevin grinned back.

“Only a little huh?” you teased.

“Oh I have a few ideas of what could help,” he murmured.

The flash of heat in his eyes sent a flare of heat through your body, and you couldn’t help but to dart your tongue out to wet your bottom lip, Kevin’s eyes tracking the motion, making you smile. But you had no time to tease him before he took your lips in a kiss, making you whimper at how quickly it got heated before Kevin broke away with a gasp, leaving your head spinning.

“So that’s one idea,” he grinned.

Oh fuck, this man was going to ruin you. But not before you ruined him a little bit first.

“What’s your next idea?” you breathed.

Kevin just grinned, stepping backwards a little bit, making you whine before you could stop yourself.

“Stay right where you are, beautiful. Keep your eyes on me,”

That you could do. You dramatically placed your hands against the wall, making him laugh as he dropped his jacket carelessly to the floor, and his fingers went to the top button of his shirt. He kept his eyes on you as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his strong broad chest inch by inch until he was able to drop it to the floor, leaving him in just his jeans. Fuck. You would never be able to get enough of the sight of him like this, let alone the touch (and you couldn’t wait for the taste) – the strength in his shoulders, his chest, his core, his arms…fuck.

“Get back over here,” you said, voice low and rough.

Kevin inhaled sharply, and he wasted no time in stumbling back over to you, arms caging you in against the wall in a way that made you want.

“Great second idea. What’s next?” you breathed.

Fuck. This was winding you up and up and up and you knew the night had barely even started.

“I want…can I taste you?” he blurted.

What? But before you could ask what he meant, Kevin dropped to his knees, making you gasp. Oh fuck. Oh yes.

“You want to be on your knees for me?” you asked, swallowing heavily.

“Yeah, so bad,” Kevin nodded, a little desperate.

Well how could you say no to that?

Biting your bottom lip, you reached up under your dress, hooking your fingers into the sides of your panties and tugging them down. Kevin whined as his view was blocked by the skirt of your dress but you just grinned. This was the least he deserved for stripping his shirt off so slowly. You let your panties drop to the floor when they were past the thickness of your thighs and slowly stepped out of them, kicking them to one side.

His move.

Kevin’s eyes were wide and dark as he raised his hands to rest on your thighs, lips slightly parted.

“Please, can I?” he murmured, thumbs brushing under the skirt hem.

Fuck. This was all too much, the desire, his patience, his asking. Bring it on.

“Yeah, go ahead,” you nodded, inhaling sharply.

He slowly dragged the skirt of your dress up to your hips, moaning softly under his breath when you were revealed bare to him. One of his hands bunched up the dress to hold it in place, the other placed large and firm on your thigh, and his thumb lightly stroked over the wetness in your folds…before he stopped.

Kevin looked up at you, wordless asking one last time. And you just nodded, too overwhelmed in the moment to utter any words, your heart racing at the very sight of him kneeling so comfortably between your thighs. With a smile, he shuffled a little closer to you, ducking his head to place a reverent kiss to your clit, making you gasp, earning a soft laugh.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Kevin mumbled, mostly to himself.

Then he ducked his head down and dove right in, tongue running over your folds in a wide stripe, his tongue flicking at your clit in a way that made you gasp. Fuck. How was he so good at this, straight off the bat? You could feel him smirking against your skin, before his tongue flicked at your clit again, and you couldn’t stop your hips bucking to chase the feeling. Fuck. The hand holding your dress out of the way adjusted to rest across your hips, pinning you to the wall, as his tongue ran back and forth over your core, gathering and tasting your wetness, dipping in and out of you, making you clench down on nothing. You didn’t hold back the soft moans that spilled from your lips, your body trembling with how good he made you feel. But as you clenched down empty again, you knew you could feel even better.

“More, Kev, please?” you begged.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he groaned, resting his forehead against your hip.

You giggled, pushing his hair out of his eyes so he would look up at you.

“I want more,” you said firmly, eyes holding his in challenge.

And fuck did he rise to the challenge.

Kevin buried his face back between your thighs, eagerly running his tongue back and forth over you, into you, winding you up higher and higher, until he backed off to just sucking on your clit. Then you realised why he’d changed tactic, as his fingers moved to trail through your folds. With a fingertip teasing at your entrance, Kevin looked up at you, those big blue eyes questioning, and it was all you could do to nod. Leisurely Kevin slid a finger into you, letting you get used to the intrusion before he started to move it, gentle and slow, sending sparks up your spine and making your eyes clench shut. Then his teeth scraped over your clit and you wailed at the electricity that shot through your body, eyes flying open to glare down at him, wild and weak-kneed. Kevin’s eyes just sparkled with laughter, and he wasted no time in sliding in a second finger, sucking at your clit in the same rhythm in which he fucked his fingers into you. Fuck. You could feel a familiar heat start to build and you moaned – it wasn’t fair how quickly he learned the cues of your body.

Two can play at that game.

“You look so good on your knees for me,” you breathed, running your fingers through his messy hair.

Kevin’s eyes flashed with fire as he moaned at your words, sending a shockwave through you, making you gasp. Good. He leaned back slightly, tongue darting out over his swollen lips, before he smirked.

“You look so good with my fingers inside you,” he rasped back, curling both fingers over and over again in a come hither motion, “Going to look even better on my cock,”

Game, set, and match. Fuck. You cried out as the onslaught of his fingers sent you crashing through your high, Kevin smirking before he returned his tongue to lick between the two digits, prolonging the wave of pleasure until you were shaking and overwhelmed. Kevin backed off a little bit, leaning back to sit on his heels, but his face radiated smugness, of a job well done, even as the hard line of his cock strained against the denim of his jeans.

It was all you could do to fall to your knees to join him, straddling his lap lightly as you fought to regain control over your breathing, his hands going straight to your hips where your dress had fallen back down.

“Fuck, Kev,” you said with a shaky laugh.

He just smirked, wiggling his eyebrows, making you laugh for real. Ridiculous man. Without saying another word, you rested one hand against his bare chest, lifting the other hand to cup his face. You stroked your thumb over the wetness lingering on his bottom lip, before pressing down lightly on that lip to get him to open his mouth, and Kevin took the hint straight away, accepting your thumb into his mouth. You couldn’t take your eyes away from the sight of him closing his plush lips around it, sucking the wetness away, the same wetness that was still between your thighs.

Then his teeth scraped over the pad of your thumb, imitating his treatment of your clit, making you moan and clench down on nothing, even more evident where your thighs were spread across his lips.

“You’re such a tease,” you gasped, pulling your thumb free.

“Not a tease if I’m planning on following through,” Kevin said simply, smirk still playing with his expression.

The intensity in his eyes paired with the way his hands squeezed your hips sent a shiver up your spine, and you let a small smirk of your own drift across your lips.

“Hmm, yes, you said something about how good I’ll look with your cock inside me?” you murmured.

The noise that tore from Kevin’s throat was barely human, more feral than anything else, and the want in his eyes sent a wave of heat through your body. Fuck, yes.

“Fuck, yes,” he groaned, “I know I just said it in the heat of the moment, but do you…do you want…”

“Yeah, Kev, I want,” you nodded quickly.

Kevin all but growled. “Hook your legs around my waist,” he said firmly.

What?

And then you felt his abs tense, as Kevin anchored himself to stand up from the floor with you in his arms, and you shrieked as you hurried to do as he said, hooking your ankles together against the swell of his ass.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” you breathed, arms firmly around his neck as he held you securely.

It was all you could do not to think about how your bare core was pressed against his abs. Fuck.

“Yeah?” he smirked.

You rolled your eyes fondly. “Take me to bed, Kev,”

Kevin swallowed heavily, his eyes flashing dark and serious.

“Yes ma’am,”

A party was never just a simple party when Kevin Hayes was involved. Music was pounding, beer was flowing, shots were poured, and weed was an easy haze on the back porch. At all the parties he’d thrown like this in the past, you’d always drifted to and from him, flitting from group to group just like he did, always separate. But this time, no – this time you were sitting on the sofa with his arm wrapped around your waist, leaning into his body because now you could.

And fuck did it feel good.

“So, tell us, how does it feel to be finally be called Kevin’s girl, rather than Kevin’s New York girl?” Claude grinned.

Ah yes, that nickname. Finally, it could die.

“Feels pretty fucking sweet actually,” you said simply.

Everyone on the sofas around you burst into laughter, and you could feel the rumble of Kevin’s own laughter deep in his chest. You couldn’t help but look up at him with a smile, earning an adoring smile back, as well as a soft kiss. Yeah, this was exactly where you wanted to be.

“How did you two actually meet?” Ryanne asked, smiling, “Like, I know you’ve been friends for years…but how?”

You found yourself smiling as you looked back up at Kevin, and he smiled down at you. It was true, you really had been friends with him for years at this point. And your first meeting was pretty funny.

“Go ahead,” Kevin shrugged.

His loss.

“Alright, so it went like this…”

Sunday night was grocery run night – and this week was no different. You walked into the lobby of your apartment building with both your arms full, trying to figure out how you were going to call the elevator, when you noticed a very tall guy already waiting, the elevator call button pressed. Huh, that solved that problem.

He smiled as you stopped next to him, giving you a little nod. “Hey,”

Holy shit this guy is hot. No, not the time. Tall…hot…great smile…no, focus. Be cool.

“Oh hey, you’re one of the new guys, right?” you smiled, tilting your head to look up at him.

“Yeah, I’m Kevin. I just got a place with my buddies Jimmy and Brady. A couple of floors up from you, right?”

Oh wow. He froze as your eyes widened in surprise, and groaned.

“I swear I’m not a creep?” he offered, wincing, “I’m just really good with faces,”

For some reason, you believed him. Call it intuition, or vibes, or whatever. This guy was being genuine. Huh.

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” you teased.

His shoulders slumped a little as if releasing tension, making you smile. As if by fate, the elevator pinged its arrival, and Kevin gestured for you to enter first before following you in.

“So,”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you spoke in unison, Kevin just grinning. Oops.

“Go ahead,” you mused.

“I was going to say, if you fancy meeting my other flatmates too, we’re having a little housewarming of sorts. Like, a bunch of our friends are coming over, sort of a drop in and out whenever time kind of thing. It’d be nice to meet you properly, and show you I’m not actually a weirdo? Friday, if you’re free?”

Oh wow. That was really…sweet? Sure, it could blow up in your face, and he could actually be a creep…but again, those intuitive vibes were saying he wasn’t. And it definitely beats sitting at home and eating cold pizza. Again.

And damn, if his flatmates looked anything like him? Eye candy for days.

“Friday huh? I could do Friday,” you said simply, trying to keep your cool.

His answering smile let you know you’d made the right decision.

“…and after that, we became really good friends, all four of us. He never flirted with me after that time in the elevator and I tried my hardest not to flirt with him. I stayed in touch with Kev when he went to the Jets and then here to the Flyers, and he was one of the first people I got in contact with when my job moved me to Philadelphia. And then everything changed a few weeks ago. The rest is history,” you shrugged.

Kevin grinned, although he definitely had a blush on his cheeks.

“You were such a creep,” Claude said, laughing.

Kevin blushed a little fiercer. “It just came out! Of course I noticed the prettiest girl in the building – that was the least awful way I could’ve said it,”

You rolled your eyes as his friends hooted and jeered, although you felt your cheeks heat up with warmth.

“Just couldn’t help yourself, huh?” you teased.

“I got there in the end, didn’t I?” he shot back with a dramatic wink.

“Only took you a few years,” Nolan snorted.

Kevin just grinned, unashamed.

It may have taken a few years, but Kevin was right – you had gotten there in the end. All the years of self-doubt and insecurity, thinking you’d never be more than just friends, had resulted in a beautiful – if unexpected – relationship. A build-up of such a solid foundation of friendship over the past four years had already given you the opportunity to learn so much about him – and you couldn’t wait to learn even more. To learn about Kevin, the boyfriend. And, maybe even more than that, if you were lucky. Yes, unexpected as this may have been, you were in this for the long haul. And you couldn’t wait.

#my writing #kevin hayes #there's just something about this big guy #where can I find myself a guy like this kevin?#I just love a bit of friends to lovers!#kevin hayes fic #kevin hayes x reader #kevin hayes imagine #kevin hayes fanfic #friends to lovers #nhl writing #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey writing #hockey fic #hockey imagine

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sondepoch · 3 years

Text

Silence Starts to Overflow (Venti x Reader)

Barbatos’s voice, whispering gently in the wind, stirs you from the slumber you were about to give into. How cruel, that you would allow yourself to pass without saying farewell to him.

MASTERLIST

Death isn’t quite the right word for it.

It would be more fitting to say that you’re passing—because passing is something that precedes catching, catching is something that precedes continuing, and continuing is something that precedes life.

Though to say that this state you’re in can precede life is a lie at best.

Where are you?

Barbatos’s voice, whispering gently in the wind, stirs you from the slumber you were about to give into.

How cruel, that you would allow yourself to pass without saying farewell to him.

The final remnants of your strength—the strength you’d been saving for a final, devastating blow against Baal, the strength you never got to use because Rex Lapis ambushed you first with an cataclysmic meteor—fly out from your fingertips in a single beacon of light that pierces the clouds as it broadcasts your position to the world.

Instantly, you feel the wind turn.

A smile crosses your lips at that. Channeling your Lumino into the sky so freely is a risky move, especially given that every archon in the area now knows where you are. You can already sense the familiar pulse of Geo and Electro growing closer as Rex Lapis and Baal doubtlessly venture back to you to finish the job, but, of course, Barbatos is faster.

Geo is slow, after all.

Electro is marginally faster, given the right medium.

Nothing, however, can trump the speed of Anemo.

Nothing but Lumino, though you suppose that will cease to exist with your passing.

“You’re a fool,” Barbatos whispers in that breathy, exhilarated voice of his. “Someone could have seen,” he says. “You’re lucky I was so close.”

Ah. It appears that he hasn’t seen your wounds yet.

Well, that’s not so bad.

You allow yourself to relax as Barbatos gathers you in his arms at the speed of wind, holding you close against his chest as he rides a breeze of his own making into the sky.

“There are less than a hundred gods left, now. You and I can keep a low profile these next few days and wait for the numbers to dwindle, and then we can start working together to…”

You say nothing as Barbatos continues.

To die like this, in the arms of your lover, the sound of his laughter in his ear and the element of his soul surrounding you...would be a peaceful death.

A nice death.

As Barbatos eagerly tells you about his fight against Beleth, you press your head deeper into his chest. You take a deep breath of his scent, the scent of cecilias and happiness and youth and freedom, and you begin to let yourself drift away, the strength of Lumino finally fading from your gnosis and from this world, and…

How cruel.

You can’t bring yourself to part from your lover just yet.

Not without a proper goodbye, at least.

“Barbatos,” you whisper, just strong enough to lift your head off his chest. “Barbatos, please.”

It’s at this moment that Barbatos looks, properly looks, down at you, and you can see the adrenaline of his victory sap from his expression, beautiful blue eyes turning from overjoyed to mortified in a single second.

“No,” he mutters when he sees how the light has already begun to fade from your eyes, the natural waves of Lumino that used to radiate off you so naturally now turned dim with your impending death. “No. No, this can’t—no, no. No. Please. No. No.”

Within a second, he has your back lain against a cloud, as if the stoppage of movement can do anything with your elemental energy so far dwindled.

“Who—who did this—”

You smile gently.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Baal isn’t an especially dangerous woman: you know Barbatos can defeat her; but if she’s managed to obtain an alliance with Rex Lapis, God of War, then the last thing you want is for your lover to attempt to avenge you and get himself killed just like you. Not when Barbatos is already so strong. Not when he already has a chance at becoming one of the Final Seven.

“T-This isn’t a time for—”

“Shh,” you whisper, reaching for his hands. The touch calms him. You channel what little power you have left into his hands, praying that he can feel it. Feel you.

“Tell me,” Barbatos says, tears beginning to build in those mesmerizing eyes. It’s hardly the time to be thinking about it, but this form that he’s chosen is truly beautiful: skin like porcelain, perfect and fine and untouchable, stunning dark blue hair, thick and nearly-black at every inch, and eyes that hold your entire world in them, blue and green and Barbatos. “I—please, they might still be around here. I can defeat them and give you their gnosis, and—”

You force yourself past your limits to lift an arm up to Barbatos’s chin. It takes all your effort to press a single finger against his lips, a wordless seal on the conversation.

“You’re dying,” he whispers, the tears now spilling forth. “You’re—you’re—”

You press your finger against his lips again, silently asking him to speak not of your death, and the god breaks down next to you, sobbing loudly as he pulls you closer, now holding you in his arms instead of allowing you to remain flat on the ground.

It’s quite uncomfortable, actually.

Yet, you prefer the warmth of your lover’s arms to soft chill of the clouds, prefer the sensation of his salty tears spilling onto your hair, prefer the way you can savor the feeling of him a little bit longer this way.

“S-Sitri should be near here. I-if you can last just a little longer, he’ll be able to heal you and—”

Your heart falls. This must be karma.

“I killed Sitri this morning.”

The devastation in Barbatos’s eyes when you say that is more painful than the spreading darkness in your gut.

“Ph-Phenex might—”

“Sitri killed Phenex. He told me.”

The sound that spills past Barbatos’s lips at that is something between a wail and a whimper, a sob and a scream. It’s nothing like the beautiful music you’re used to hearing from his lips, and it hurts you to know that you’re the cause of this awful noise, this awful pain that will hurt him so much more than it can hurt you.

Though that’s the nature of this war, isn’t it? The very notion of thousands of gods, thousands of elements, all fighting against one another in an attempt to sit on one of the final seven seats in Celestia is something that can only occur with death, with sacrifice.

You and Barbatos were naive for ever thinking that both of you would be able to make it.

“Barbatos,” you say, cupping his cheek gently, admiring the silky softness of his skin because you know this is the last time you’ll be able to do so. “I want you to live.”

“Stop it,” Barbatos says. “Stop—stop talking like you’re going to—to—”

“To die,” you finish for him, and your hand falls from Barbatos’s cheek. You don’t have the strength to hold it up anymore. “But I don’t want you to die.”

“N-no, please, I—” Barbatos sobs, an ugly sound. “I don’t want to live in a world without you.”

“I want you to live,” you say, stubborn. “Live for me.”

“I don’t want to,” Barbatos whispers. “Not without you. S-so if you want me to live, please just try to—”

“I can’t.” Your smile is sad as you stare at him. “I can’t, Barbatos, but you can.”

“I don’t—”

“Take my gnosis.”

Your lover physically recoils at that, shock painted on his beautiful features before denial takes over.

“No,” he says, shaking his head furiously. “No, no, no. No. I won’t. I—you’ll only die faster without your—”

“Barbatos,” you say, wishing you had the strength to reach out and grab his hand. “Barbatos, for all purposes, I'm already dead.”

“No!” he shouts, and when he sees how you wince at that, he lowers the volume of his voice. “No, you’re—you’re not dead. You’re alive, you’re here, and you don’t have to—”

“I can’t control it if I die.” You turn your gaze from Barbatos to the sky, vaguely wondering what heavens are above the heavens. “But you can make sure you don't. Take my gnosis.”

“I don’t want it,” Barbatos whispers, and his eyes shimmer with tears he’s trying to hold back.

“Take it,” you say. “Take it and live. And remember me. And build a world where no one else needs to die like this.”

“I don’t care about anyone else,” Barbatos whispers, but his hand is on your heart, now. “I just want you. Please. Please don’t—”

“Take it.”

The power of Lumino comes to a peak as you allow the source of it to expose itself, raw elemental energy radiating off your body.

“Hurry,” you whisper. “Someone will come.”

“I-I don’t—”

Barbatos lets his hand grip the gnosis, but he can’t seem to bring himself to take it out from you. Doubtless, it’s because he knows that this gnosis is the only thing allowing you to cling to life—but for him to be able to absorb its power, he has to take it from you when you’re still alive. You need him to take it now. If you want to make sure he has the strength to become one of the Final Seven, this push is the only thing you can offer him.

“I love you.”

The words fall from your lips naturally, and the power of saying them—a power that inevitably rises because those three words, that declaration of your heart’s true sentiments, are the reason you’re able to get up every day, a power that gives and gives and gives and is the sole reason for which you live—sends you a final boost of strength.

You thrust your hand onto Barbatos’s and hold it.

With the gentleness that only the shadow death can bring, you lift his hand, still closed around your gnosis, from your body.

The second your gnosis is off of you, it binds to Barbatos.

You can see the power travel into his body: the power that manifested as Lumino in you being absorbed into his body as the tips of his braids turn bright at the edges, a beautiful blue as bright as the sky where the edge of Barbatos's hair was once nearly black. You can feel, then, as the gnosis amplifies his power: it happens in a shockwave that jolts your body, a shockwave that shakes you to the core with the original source of your power now gone.

“You…”

Barbatos stares down at you with wide and teary eyes. Where you seem mesmerized by his transformation, it seems that he’s horrified at yours. No doubt, just as the light entered him, it must be equally visible that it’s left you.

A chilling breeze draws towards you. You shiver under it.

“Cold,” you mutter, and Barbatos instantly pulls his cape off to wrap you in it. Somehow, it does nothing to warm you up. The cold, it seems, originates from within.

“Stay with me,” Barbatos says, cradling you in his arms. He presses his lips to your forehead. “Stay with me, love. Stay with me. You can live through this, I know it, just stay…”

Ah.

It’s so cold.

The chill that begins from deep inside you spreads, branching towards your fingertips and your toes and up your neck. With it comes a darkness, one that your power has always protected you from. Now, though, Lumino is weak. It stands no chance at being one of the Final Seven elements. You failed it as an archon.

“...with me. Please. Please don’t go. Stay. Please. Please…”

You want to respond to him. You’ve never heard Barbatos sound so miserable, so broken. You stare up at him, trying to make your lips form the shape to words that will comfort him.

You can’t seem to move your lips.

You can’t seem to move your eyes, either.

Numb, you stare up at Barbatos, unblinking and unmoving. Your gaze is fixed on him, a darkness creeping in at the edges.

No, you think. No, stop. I want to look at him longer.

The darkness doesn’t oblige. It creeps closer and closer, and a desperate fear begins to overtake you. Is this the last time you’ll see your lover? Why? How? How can that be? That can’t be right. You and Barbatos were supposed to win this war. You and Barbatos were supposed to survive this war. You and Barbatos were supposed to rule a nation together and save the world together and build a life together and—

Why is it all going away?

Stripped of the power of light that had always protected you, the darkness you’d always feared crawls closer.

Stop, you think. Stop it. Don’t take him away. I want to stay. I want to stay with him. I don’t—

Despite the chilling cold that’s wrapped around all your body, you feel a tear fall.

I don’t want to die.

You hear something that sounds like a scream, but it’s so distant. It’s like a howl: monstrous and enraged and furious and terrifying, yet...familiar. Suddenly, you can’t figure out who this wailing reminds you of, but the thought of the person sends a strange sense of warmth to you.

It’s nice, you think.

You can’t be quite sure what’s happening anymore. All you know is that it’s cold and dark, so horribly cold and dark.

The howling sound grows louder. Vaguely, you feel something grip you, shake you, cling to you.

Something about you is instinctively soothed by the touch. Amidst all this cold and all this darkness, you think you can find comfort in this sensation. You know you shouldn’t like it—that the feeling of your body being shaken and clung to and howled and wailed at isn’t something you should like—but there’s peace in it.

It’s a nice feeling.

MASTERLIST

Word Count: 2.3k

Notes: freedom sword come home

Comment & Like

I do not own the rights to Genshin Impact or any of the characters within it.

#Word Count: 2.3k #gender neutral reader #TW: DEATH #genshin impact #genshin impact venti x reader #genshin impact barbatos x reader #venti x reader #barbatos x reader #dying #reader dies basically #pre-canon #archon war AU #reader is a god #reader is gender neutral #veri sad venti

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blu-joons · 3 years

Text

When Dispatch Reveals Your Relationship ~ BTS Reaction

Jin:

“The article is rubbish anyway,” Jin groaned as he threw his phone down onto the sofa, “at least respect us enough to put a good quality article out.”

“Is that all you’re bothered about right now?” You asked him, sitting up properly on the sofa. “Our relationship has just been revealed if you’ve forgotten.”

His head nodded as he took a seat beside you, “Dispatch revealed our relationship, it’s a joke of a publisher anyway, I bet most of the fans don’t even believe it.”

Your eyes stared across at him in disbelief, “but it’s a true article Jin, having them not believe it is only going to make things worse.”

“Don’t worry, in a couple of days this will all blow over,” he very calmly assured you.

Your head continued to shake however, “I don’t get how you can be so calm about this right now when everyone knows about us.”

“When a creditable source writes an article, then I’ll care.”

“Jin,” you hissed, “can’t you just try and take this a little bit seriously, this is a big deal for the two of us right now.”

“It’s Dispatch, trust me, it’s no big deal.”

“Stop saying that, an article is an article.”

Yoongi:

“Can you please just say something?” You asked of Yoongi, beginning to get nervous as he remained silent. “Or at least tell me what you’re planning?”

“It’s nothing,” he sighed, turning his phone off so the article was no longer on the screen. “If I do something, I’ll probably end up just regretting it right now.”

You shuffled a little closer to Yoongi as his arm wrapped around you, “I can tell that you’re pretty frustrated that it was Dispatch that ended up outing us.”

His head nodded slowly, “Dispatch are horrendous, we’ve laughed over enough of their articles to know that much.”

“And now somehow we’ve managed to give them their headline,” you joked back.

Yoongi sighed as the realisation began to sink in, “of all the journalists to catch us, it just had to end up being Dispatch, typical.”

“Maybe it’s a sign that it was our time to go public.”

“I would even prefer Koreaboo to Dispatch,” he continued to whine, “and that’s saying something because they’re shocking too.”

“Are there any news outlets that you actually like?”

“In Korea? Absolutely not.”

Hoseok:

“What are we supposed to do?” He yelled, staring at you for any help at all. “How are we supposed to get out of this situation that we’re in.”

“We could start by breathing,” you tried to joke, keen to calm him down. “We’ve talked about how this would probably happen at some point in our relationship.”

His head nodded, although nothing could truly prepare Hobi for the feeling. “The fact that Dispatch got onto us first just winds me up even more than anything else.”

You couldn’t help yourself but laugh, “I remember when you used to joke about how Dispatch would create a huge drama.”

“That’s exactly what they’ve ended up doing anyway,” he frantically called out to you.

Your hands rested against his chest, “stop getting so angry, between the two of us and your management I’m sure it’s all under control.”

“The next time I see a Dispatch journalist, I swear I will…”

“Stop,” you called out, a little louder than before, “you’re not helping yourself; you’re only giving Dispatch the satisfaction.”

“Sorry, I promise I’ll try and calm down a little.”

“Take a breath, things will be alright.”

Namjoon:

“Why are you so calm?” You whispered across to Namjoon, noticing him lost on his phone. “You’re not doing something stupid by any chance, are you?”

“I’m not letting them get away with his,” he responded, not even looking at you. “The company says they can get a legal team together within the hour.”

Your body tensed up as soon as Namjoon spoke, “don’t you think that’s a little bit drastic? It’s just a news article Namjoon, it’s not exactly the end of the world.”

His eyes finally looked to you, “it’s an invasion of privacy, they do it all the time, we can’t just let them get away with it.”

“I don’t want this to be any harder for us then it already is right now,” you admitted.

His hand reached across to rest over yours, “don’t worry, we’ll be completely fine, and I’ll protect you from anything bad anyway.”

“Can you really get a legal team just like that too?”

“Of course,” he chuckled, “I don’t like to use the group for much, but this is definitely one of the perks of it.”

“It must be good to be a part of BTS.”

“Definitely during times like this.”

Jimin:

“My phone just will not shut up,” Jimin sighed, burying it under his pillow to try and silence it, “I just want the ground to swallow me up right about now.”

“Well, we’ve got Dispatch trending at least,” you tried to joke, but Jimin failed to laugh with you. “Is it really that big of a deal that the fans have found out?”

His eyes looked to you, shaking his head. “I don’t care that the fans found out, but so many journalists are coming to me thinking that we went to Dispatch.”

Your eyes widened at his statement, “as if we would ever choose to go with Dispatch, surely they must know that.”

“Maybe we should release a statement and explain what’s going on,” he suggested.

Your head instantly nodded in agreement with him, “the last thing we need is people thinking we support anything that Dispatch does.”

“Exactly, let’s at least do something on our terms right now.”

“I agree,” you smiled, watching as he pulled his phone back out, “at least it might help to shut that thing up too.”

“I’m so tempted to throw it at the wall.”

“Don’t, then we let them win.”

Taehyung:

“You always tell me that Dispatch is rubbish,” you tried to reason with Taehyung as he frantically began to panic by your side about the article that had been released.

“It is rubbish,” he quickly confirmed, letting go of a sigh, “which is why they have no right to be the ones to tell the fans that we’re dating one another.”

Your hand moved across to rest against his back, “can you at least try and stay calm about this? You’re making me more worried by getting so stressed.”

His eyes looked across to you, “I’m not stressed, it’s just I’m annoyed that Dispatch are the ones that have published an article.”

“Someone, someday, was going to end up publishing one,” you reminded him.

Another sigh came from him, “but Dispatch, they’re the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to news companies in Korea Y/N.”

“At least most people will probably laugh at the article.”

“But what about us?” He then questioned, “what are we supposed to do now that the article has been released.”

“Let’s just try and not panic for now at least.”

“I wish I was as calm as you.”

Jungkook:

“I’ll be fine,” you assured Jungkook as he continued to pace around the room, “it’s one article, and they’ve hardly got any concrete evidence anyway.”

“You don’t understand,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair, “Dispatch is known for revealing relationships, fans don’t need evidence to trust them.”

You stood up too, trying to calm him down, “but until they have evidence, then you can just deny it, can’t you? Or at least until we’re ready to be public on our terms.”

His eyes looked to you as you stood before him, stopping him from walking. “I bet the company is overwhelmed with messages right now.”

“And they’re employed to handle these situations,” you continued to remind him.

With a soft sigh, his head nodded back at you, “let’s just see what the reaction is, and then we can decide how to protect you then.”

“I’m a grown woman, I can protect myself from this Kook.”

“No,” he sharply responded, “you don’t know what it can be like, like I do, just trust me on this one, please.”

“Alright, we’ll take the next step soon then.”

“I just want to be careful, that’s all.”

---

Masterlist

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yukidragon · 3 years

Text

Our Life Snippet - Lazy Morning Intimacy

So, who’s ready for an extra long serving of shameless fluff from the first draft of my fan novelization of Our Life: Beginnings & Always? My philosophy in writing this is if I can add some more fluffy cuddly moments, I absolutely will, and the Step 3 moment Reflection offers one such opportunity right at the very start before, well, those of you who have played this moment know what happens later.

Spoilers for those who have not played the Step 3 DLC! If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read any further! If you don’t mind spoilery stuff, well, don’t let me stop you, but I highly, highly encourage you to play through the game before reading any of this.

As always, thanks go to @gb-patch for their wonderful game and their lovely feedback for my work, as well as everyone who likes, reblogs, and comments on these clips I’m posting here. You are all awesome. 💖

...

It wasn’t often that Jamie had the chance to enjoy breakfast at the Holden house. Ever since their parents decreed that they were ‘too old’ for sleepovers, she and Cove didn’t have many opportunities to enjoy that particular meal together, which made today a rare treat. It wasn’t especially fancy fare, but it was lovely to be able to spend time with her boyfriend almost as soon as she woke up. She was glad she impulsively asked if he wanted to have breakfast with her when they exchanged their usual good morning texts.

After a pleasant meal filled with light conversation and tasty food, Cove invited Jamie to retreat to his room to relax and let the lazy morning linger before any big activities began. That was, if they didn’t just decide to take it easy for the rest of the day. Neither of them had any plans in particular, with no prior commitments with friends, family, or work to distract them from just spending the day together. It wasn’t officially a date day, per say, or at least neither of them called it that yet. So far, they just decided to do whatever came to mind while enjoying each other’s company.

Of course, the first thing that came to Jamie’s mind was to cuddle with her boyfriend. When Cove sat down onto the bed, she didn’t hesitate to take a seat beside him, leaning into him. He hummed happily in approval and looped an arm around her to pull her in even closer.

A mischievous smile tugged at her lips as a new thought came to mind, and Jamie leaned in even closer. Cove raised an eyebrow at expression, only to yelp when she unexpectedly pushed her weight into him and tipped him back onto the bed. She fell along with him, giggling as they tumbled onto the mattress

Cove let out a chuckle of his own once he recovered from his surprise. “When I said we could relax, I didn’t mean going back to bed,” he said with a wry smile. Even still, he allowed her to nudge him gently back to the headboard so that they could both lounge comfortably on the bed properly with their heads resting on the pillows side by side.

Jamie flashed Cove a satisfied grin before she snuggled up against his side, nuzzling her cheek against his as she basked in his gentle warmth. “You also said to make myself comfortable,” she teased, her eyes sparkling playfully as she rested her arm across his chest. “I’m very comfortable like this.”

Cove felt his heartbeat quicken, and he smiled back fondly at Jamie, nuzzling her cheek in return. “Me too,” he said softly.

Though maybe he was a little too comfortable.

Cove couldn’t help but be aware of the fact that they were both lying in his bed together. A prickling of nerves rose up that he quickly did his best to tamp down to not ruin the intimate moment they were sharing. It was fine, no big deal, he told himself. They were both fully dressed, on top of the sheets, and it was broad daylight. They cuddled plenty of times like this before on sofas and the ground. Heck, this was nothing compared to when they shared a bed when they were younger.

The flickering of nervousness didn’t escape Jamie’s notice. She softened her expression and reached up to gently run her fingers through her shy boyfriend’s hair. She had intended to steal a kiss or two and see where that would take them, but she decided that could wait until later. Just enjoying this moment with Cove was enough for her.

The touch was soothing, and Cove slowly started to relax as he leaned into Jamie. The anxious air that had threatened to pull him out of the moment gradually dissipated as her comforting warmth slowly settled in. Soon, he felt at ease enough to slip his arm back around her, which she happily used as her new pillow. He couldn’t help but smile at seeing the content expression on his partner’s face as she smiled softly back at him.

A comfortable silence washed over the pair as they simply enjoyed the quiet moment of intimacy. At some point, Jamie went from stroking Cove’s hair to toying with it. His ponytail limited her in how much she could card her fingers through his hair, but there were plenty of long locks to ripple between her fingers.

It wasn’t the first time Jamie got the impulse to play with her boyfriend’s hair. Even before he was officially - or even unofficially - her boyfriend, she couldn’t help but want to run her fingers through those pretty pale green strands. When they were younger, Cove would jokingly try to avoid her hands, but always ‘failed’ to escape in the end, allowing her to have her way. Sometimes she teased him back by pretending to give up, and he would always pout adorably, which she would immediately chase away with a satisfying ruffle of his hair.

Occasionally, Jamie would go beyond playing to actual styling. She was no professional, but it was fun to wind her boyfriend’s hair into a braid or two sometimes. Cove never minded, even if the braids rarely lasted that long after she was finished making them. It also didn’t escape her notice that he would sometimes shiver or let out an adorable pleasured little mumble when she raked her fingers along his scalp. It was an enjoyable experience for both of them, and sometimes she suspected that was one of the reasons why he let his hair grow as long as he did.

Jamie had no such grand designs now. Today she simply basked in the freedom to enjoy the feeling of his soft hair sliding between her fingers as she listened to the happy noises her partner occasionally let slip.

Although much more at ease, Cove couldn’t help the small traces of nervous energy that left him with the need to do something with his hands. He ran his thumb across her shoulder with the hand that was limited by Jamie resting on the upper part of his arm. With his freer hand, he decided to return the favor she paid to him and ran his fingers through her long deep blue hair, starting with stroking back her bangs before sliding his hand down along the entire length of her hair until he reached the ends at her hips. The feeling was soft and silky, and she sighed softly at the attention.

On impulse, Cove poked one of the small buns on top of his girlfriend’s head. Space buns were her preferred hairstyle of choice nowadays, and there was something satisfying about poking them that he couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was the feel of them, or the way the bunched up hair bounced when poked that did it, but most likely it was because of the amused looks Jamie gave him whenever he did. She wore one such expression now, and he couldn’t help but chuckle a bit before giving her bun another playful poke.

Entertained, Jamie let Cove have her way with her buns, poking and prodding them as he pleased. The potential for innuendo wasn’t lost on her, but she let it go unsaid. As fun as it would be to make him flustered by suggesting that he might enjoy playing with a different set of buns she had even more, she didn’t want to interrupt the light, playful moment.

Jamie would just save that little bit of wordplay for later, preferably when the mood was good enough that Cove might take her up on the invitation.

Despite the steamy thoughts that skirted through her mind, Jamie did her best to focus on enjoying the lazy moment between them. It was lovely to just share such casual intimacy with Cove.

Jamie wasn’t alone in trying to ignore her more hormonal urges. As much as Cove enjoyed playing with her hair, focusing on touching her as he did made it impossible for him to stop thinking about the fact that they were both lying on his bed together. He was keenly aware of the gentle warmth of her body pressed against him, how soft and inviting her pink lips looked as she smiled at him.

Eventually, Cove realized he needed something else to occupy his hands if he didn’t want to risk disrupting the peaceful moment. Shifting about a bit, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. Although Jamie raised an eyebrow at that and at being displaced from her cozy spot when he moved around, she held no objections as he turned his phone on and busied himself with it. Instead, she simply readjusted her position to get comfortable once he was settled again.

Sifting through missed texts and emails, Cove soon managed to distract himself from the urges that ruffled his nerves and relaxed back into the moment. He spotted a number of texts he missed from his dad, and for a moment he wondered if everything was okay until he realized Cliff just sent him a bunch of images last night.

A warm smile graced his face as Cove slowly scrolled his way through the photographs, nostalgia washing over him. Each photo brought him back to the moment it was taken, allowing him to lose himself in the priceless memories he shared with his friends, family, and especially the special person he held so comfortably close at that very moment.

Some photos brought back sweet memories, others a little more on the bitter side of sweet, and then there were the funnier ones. One such silly photo seized Cove’s attention, and he couldn’t help the burst of laughter that escaped him.

The sound immediately snapped Jamie out of her relaxed stupor and brought her back to the present. She raised an eyebrow at Cove, but he failed to notice her questioning look, too preoccupied by whatever was on his phone’s screen.

“What’s so funny?” Jamie asked as she propped herself up on her arm to get a better look at his face and catch a glimpse of the phone’s screen.

Cove finally turned to look at Jamie, his eyes crinkled with mirth and a smirk playing on his lips. “Dad scanned some old photos,” he chuckled. “You know…”

Now that Jamie was no longer using his arm as a pillow, Cove was free to use it to draw a rectangle in the air. “Printed out ones,” he explained, “back from when I was little.” He waved his phone a bit with his other hand. “He texted it all to me last night, I guess. I’ve been checking them out.”

Jamie sat up completely, her dark blue eyes flying open wide. “You were looking at your kiddie photos and didn’t tell me?!” she gasped, almost scandalized at missing out on something so priceless.

Cove barely resisted the urge to chuckle, offering Jamie a bent smile as his eyes narrowed playfully. “I was gonna show you.” His gaze then slid away to his phone as his expression turned a little more hesitant. “I just wanted to look at it first to make sure there was nothing super embarrassing. You never know with my dad.”

His mouth pulled into a grimace as Cove could easily imagine all sorts of horrors his dad might have captured on film to unintentionally humiliate him until the end of time. “I mean… what if there’s a photo of me getting potty trained or something?”

Although Jamie empathized with his worries, she couldn’t help but giggle at the fraught expression Cove wore. “Yeah, that sounds like something your dad would do.”

Cove could only respond by clearing his throat nervously, his eyes skirting away from Jamie as he sat up as well. While he hadn’t come across any particularly humiliating photo of himself, he couldn’t quite shake the fear of what his dad’s well-meaning actions might have left for him to deal with this time.

Jamie offered her boyfriend a sympathetic smile before adding a slight bent to it. “Hey, how about this - if you let me look at your embarrassing baby photos, I’ll show you just as many of mine. My moms have plenty of them.”

The offer was tempting. Cove couldn’t help but wonder what sort of photos Jamie had in mind, but the price was just too steep. He merely chuckled awkwardly and shook his head as he pointedly kept his phone tilted away from her. She huffed and puffed out her cheeks in a mock pout at him for holding out on her, which elicited a genuine bout of laughter from him.

Once Cove got his mirth under control, he smiled at Jamie. “Anyway, before we forget, I was laughing ‘cause I came across a Halloween one from when I was eight. The year I was a zombie, remember?”

Jamie dropped her faux pout and nodded, her eyes lighting up eagerly. Cove shook his head at her excitement, a wry grin gracing his face as he finally offered the phone to her.

As Cove watched Jamie eagerly turn to his phone, he couldn’t help but shake his head again, this time at his kid self. “I never even liked zombies!” he said, a little baffled that he ever was so enthusiastic for such a costume. “All I wanted was to show off my new scar. And I needed to be something scary. I couldn’t be a normal person who had a scar, according to my eight-year-old mind.”

The photo displayed on the screen showed Cove from ten years in the past, and a pleasant wave of nostalgia washed over Jamie as she saw him the way he looked when they first met, minus the pink cast and plus a fair amount of makeup and fake blood. Little Cove posed for the camera with his fingers hooked like claws, his mouth open as though letting out what was probably supposed to be a fierce roar. She could easily remember the noises he made that night as he pretended to be a zombie on the hunt for brains. His hair looked even more wild and disheveled than it did after the most energetic day of play, going well with the tattered and ‘blood’ stained button up shirt he wore. His face was painted in gray down to his neck, marred with an array of fake scars that couldn’t compare to the real one on his arm.

Cove looked from Jamie to the phone and chuckled softly at the face his younger self pulled for the camera. “I was a little dork.”

Jamie eyed Cove at such self-depreciation before poking him on the nose. “You were a little cutie,” she insisted. “And now you’re a big cutie.”

Cove blinked at the playful action before blushing at the compliment. He had no words to reply to it except for a quiet, flustered chuckle as he rubbed his nose.

Jamie grinned at that reaction before turning back to the photo. As much as she enjoyed how adorable Cove looked while pretending to be a fierce monster, it was impossible to ignore the scar displayed so predominantly on his arm at that time. Her smile softened at the edges at the sight of such a large, jagged line of fresh skin that was such a deep and angry shade of red. The scar was a pale memory in the present, but back then it looked so painful, and at the time she found it hard not to worry about him and his comfort after his cast came off.

Still, Jamie refused to let that put a damper on the story and focused instead on just how much fun little Cove was having posing for the camera and remembering the way they played around with their costumes that night. She could vividly recall how she pretended to run away from him when he playfully growled that he wanted to eat her brains, and the memory made her smile grow stronger.

“Dad really wanted to be useful, as usual,” Cove said, bringing Jamie’s attention back to him in the present. Though he noticed the flicker of sadness that crossed her face and realized the reason for it, he was glad to see her perk up again just as quickly. “He came up with the idea of being an undead person. It was pretty good, huh?”

Jamie chuckled softly and nodded. “You had the best Halloween costume that year, hands down,” she said playfully. “I remember you getting lots of extra candy when adults realized the scar was real.” Her smile widened as she remembered just how jealous Lizzie had been at how much candy Cove got that year, especially since he only offered to share some of that extra candy with Jamie. “It must have been your greatest Halloween haul ever.”

Cove couldn’t help but chuckle as well as he thought back to that legendary candy haul as well. It took him a month to finish it all even with Jamie’s help.

Still, the topic of his scar brought his gaze back to the picture. Cove couldn’t help but compare the way it looked in the photo to its current appearance on his left arm. “I can’t believe how much larger my scar used to be,” he said quietly.

Jamie watched as Cove turned his focus to his arm with a soft smile on his face. He traced his fingers along the jagged line of pale flesh that remained with him even ten years on. It was an action that she had seen him do countless times, but it felt more significant in that moment.

A soft sigh escaped Cove, but his eyes and tone were playful. “Look at how tiny it is now.” He gave Jamie a look with big, pathetic eyes. “How am I gonna pretend to be tough without a big scar?”

It was a struggle for Jamie not to laugh at the expression Cove wore. “You better not do anything stupid to get a new scar,” she joked with a faux disapproving frown as she wagged a finger at him. “No matter how much you like them!”

Cove grinned back at Jamie. “I won’t.”

“Good,” Jamie said with a satisfied nod. “You’ve already got the coolest scar, no matter how small it gets.”

Cove felt his cheeks grow warm and his smile turned bashful. “Thanks.” He ducked his head away from Jamie, pleased with their joking exchange. Once again, his eyes drifted down to his scar as he continued to trace it.

“I really do like having this,” he admitted in a soft, shy voice. “Even if it is kind of little these days.”

Jamie’s expression softened as well, feeling as though Cove was sharing a big secret with her. She couldn’t help but feel happy to hear that he liked his scar despite whatever pain it must have caused him to get it. It was always wonderful whenever he opened up to her like this.

Cove glanced up at Jamie, a gentle smile gracing his lips. “I like yours, too.”

The unexpected compliment caught Jamie off guard, and heat rose in her cheeks, turning them pink. She couldn’t help but smile as she felt her chest flutter with butterflies. He never failed to think of her as well, especially since he knew that she was self-conscious of her own scars.

Unthinkingly, Jamie brought her hand up to her upper arm and traced some of the countless jagged little white lines that marred her pale skin. There were matching scars in the same place on her other arm, as well as her thighs and her chest. Unlike Cove, these scars were not the result of an accident, but her skin not being able to keep up with her sudden growth during puberty.

Back during her early teenage years when the stretch marks were fresh and an angry purplish-red, Jamie always kept them hidden. Puberty had been rough on her, dealing a blow to her self-esteem as well as her body, and being covered in so many scars left her feeling ugly even though she never once thought of Cove’s scar like that.

It took time for Jamie to accept her scars, and she knew that Cove was a big part of why. Seeing the way he took such quiet pride in his scar always made her question how she thought of hers. More than that, he always made her feel beautiful, and he was always the first to remind her whenever she needed it. That was why she was no longer afraid to wear clothes that exposed her scars like she did now.

Jamie scooted in closer to Cove as she smiled adoringly at him, placing her hand on top of his. “Thank you, Cove.”

Cove turned back to face Jamie fully. He finally let go of his scar so that he could take her hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. He felt at peace with his scar and was happy to see the same reflected on her face as well. Their scars held such meaning to them despite coming from unhappy sources.

Jamie squeezed his hand back as she drifted even closer. “Could I touch your scar?”

Cove blinked, taken aback by the request. Usually, Jamie wasn’t shy about touching him without asking first, particularly someplace as innocent as his arm. Still, he quickly realized why she might hesitate to do that now and smiled gently at her as he nodded easily. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

Jamie gave Cove’s hand one more squeeze before letting go of it. Lightly, she pressed her fingertips against the edges of his scar. With great care, she slowly ran her thumb along the entire length of it, following the jagged angles the old wound took. The pale flesh was rough when compared to the rest of his skin, which was soft, but with goosebumps rising quickly along his arm as she stroked his scar.

The touch, so delicate and gentle, left Cove feeling a bit lightheaded. Jamie’s touch always felt wonderful and often left him feeling butterflies, but somehow the feel of her paying such careful attention to his scar was particularly powerful. A choked breath escaped him and a wobbly smile played across his face as he lost himself in the feeling.

The dizzied smile Cove wore along with the light pink of his cheeks drew Jamie in with the urge to do more. She locked eyes with him, staring deep into his aquamarine eyes as she took a hold of his arm and raised it up towards her.

A quiet gasp escaped Cove when she realized what Jamie had in mind. He couldn’t look away from her dark blue eyes as she stared so intently into him even as she placed a soft kiss on the old wound that marked him. The feeling of her lips, warm and soft, pressed so tenderly against that particular place sent shivers up his spine, and he let out a tiny squeak.

Jamie smiled against Cove’s skin as she appreciated his adorable reaction, as well as the way he looked at her with overwhelming adoration. She kissed him again and again, tracing the entire length of his scar with her lips like she did with her fingers before.

It was impossible for Cove to stay still when Jamie was showing him such affection. He reached up with his free hand to touch her arm. With his thumb, he brushed aside the edge of her open sleeve, giving him better access to the countless little white lines marking her pale skin. The texture was interesting, feeling so similar yet so different from his own scar. Because of their size and number, he found his fingers constantly alternating between soft skin and rougher tissue. It was difficult to trace any one scar from start to finish like she did for him, so instead he sought out to touch every single one.

The touch was electric, and Jamie could feel her heartbeat speed up as Cove caressed her so lovingly. “Cove…”

Cove shivered again as Jamie murmured his name against his skin, setting off sparks that made his body burn pleasantly. It urged him to lean forward, his eyes gleaming with the fire she set ablaze inside him.

Jamie raised her head and instinctively matched his movement, drawing nearer to Cove as her eyes drifted closed. She felt his lips gently meet hers, and she melted into the tender kiss. She held a little more firmly onto his arm as she fell deeper into him, feeling like she might drown in the depths of her feelings for him.

Cove all too quickly lost himself in the moment and in Jamie. It felt so wonderful, so right to be her like this, to touch and kiss her. He loved her so much that it was almost overwhelming, but knowing that she loved him as well kept him grounded.

Eventually they finally drifted apart, breathless and dazed from the kiss, their faces flushed with heat. When Jamie opened her eyes, she saw Cove gazing back at her with his mesmerizing ocean blue eyes. The look he gave her was spellbinding, filled with so much love and adoration that made her heart hammer hard against her ribcage. It told her without words that the feelings he had for her were just as immense as hers were for him.

Cove leaned in again, this time resting his forehead gently against Jamie’s. With heavy lidded eyes, he simply enjoyed gazing deeply into her blue eyes that always reminded him of the night sky. No matter how many times he saw them, they always captivated him. He could lose himself in those beautiful eyes of hers.

The feeling of his warm breath tickling her skin made Jamie shiver a little, especially the way it brushed against her lips like the ghost of a kiss. With their heads touching, his hand on her arm and hers on his, she felt entirely entwined with Cove. It felt so right.

Time ceased to have any meaning in that moment as they gazed deeply into their partner’s eyes and drank in the closeness and warmth they shared. Seconds or minutes might have passed, but neither of them cared as they lost themselves in each other.

#Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life #ourlifeba #Cove Holden #Jamie Last #Jamie Leimomi #My Writing

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