#but GOD. does anyone else feel like their well of grace is running dry?

[terrainofheartfelt]

.

[ditttiii]

gold rush. || kth {m}

⇢ summary: kim taehyung is a walking heartbreak waiting to happen. all narrow eyes and long nose and devilish smirks, he is everyone’s dream. after months of sharing an elevator with the man who makes your heart race until you can scarcely breathe when the chance finally comes; are you willing to risk it all for his touch? 

⇢ genre: porn with feelings, soft smut, angst, is unresolved tension and feelings a genre?

⇢ pairing: kim taehyung x reader

⇢ word count: 4.4k

⇢ rating: explicit / 18+

⇢ theme: strangers to lovers, s2l!au

⇢warning/s: public/elevator sex, exhibitionism, fingering, cunnilingus/oral (female receiving), lots of kissing, hickeys, unprotected sex? reader’s on the pill, swearing, tension and so much of it, unresolved-repressed feelings, taehyung is a certified dingus & reader is hopelessly smitten. 

⇢ a/n: betaed by @yeojaa​ who owns my heart and is the most precious bean ever. 

also have all my virtual, socially distanced cuddles @btsmosphere​ @papillonsgf​ @birbdae​ & @unoriginal-username15432​. if it weren’t for their support this wouldn’t be out today. my gratitude knows no bounds ♡ also big thanks to taylor for the fic title.

banner by @chillingkoo​ & moodboard by @today-we-will-survive​​ their art breathed life into this fic ♡ a belated birthday fic for one mr.kim taehyung & the beautiful @kerikaaria​.  this fic is also my submission for @thebtswritersclub​ january monthly project. 

lastly, i had a lot of fun writing this so i hope you guys enjoy it x 2021 here v go ♡

You wonder when the shame stopped making you hide behind a curtain of messy bed hair. When the smell of a man's cologne on you and a fruity fragrance on him started to feel normal; routine.

 The elevator closes with a 'ping', and your eyes track the numbers as they descend, the warmth of another human, the soft puffs of his breath, warming your shivering, scantily dressed body.

 "What happened to ‘she’s too old for me?’ " You grunt, slipping off your six inches of agony inducing footwear and pushing them to a corner.

 "What happened to you not being jealous?" You can feel his smirk, oozing of self-assured nonchalance and smugness that would seem ugly on anyone but fits like a well-tailored suit on him. From the corner of your eye, you watch as he leans back, hands resting on the metal railing while his tall, lean body slouches lazily, almost invitingly, and you have to force your eyes away from tracing the curves of his pecs. It's a tempting sight, but you aren't about to give him any more ammo to goad you with. As it is, he already knows too much, is far too keen. 

 "Of your sugar mama? I don't think so."

 Taehyung hums but doesn't refute the statement and the silence between you two stretches on. A burning ball of jealousy in your stomach continues to eat away at your peace, and with a clenched jaw, you allow your head to rest against the cool metal of the elevator and pretend that the proximity doesn't affect you. 

 It's always the same between you two, a constant game of tug and war, where one pulls too firmly, and then the other comes tumbling close until one of you comes back to your senses and then it's back to square one. Back to bickering and recounting the previous night’s escapades of half-truths and lies told from kiss-swollen lips and hooded gazes as you try your best to rile the other one up.

 It's stupid. You are in your twenties and this isn't like you. The lying, the pretence that you are still seeing your ex-boyfriend and biting and sucking your own lip until it swells; until you look properly ravished; none of this is you.

 You should have known the day he first stumbled into the elevator with a half-buttoned shirt and bite marks painted over the pale skin of his neck, a satisfied smirk curled on his dark pink lips, that he wasn't good for you. But no, like the absolute fool that you are, you fell for him. Fell knowing full well he wasn't yours to have, that back then you weren't his to have.

 The elevator comes to a stop with a shudder. Your eyes, closed sometime during the descent, snap open and your feet pause when the sight of the closed doors grace you.

 "You stopped the elevator." It's not a question, not when his hand is still hovering over the stop button, head tilted as his eyes stay trained on you.

 "I did." He admits to a question you never asked.

 Biting back a hiss at his insistence on being difficult, you twist on your heels, lips pulled into a smile whose edges sting like shards of a broken glass and parry, "And why did you do that, pray tell?"

 He doesn't answer, just looks at you with that half-lidded gaze and his silence only infuriates you more, makes the back of your neck feel heated as an angry flush rises from your chest all the way up to your cheeks and with a few angry stomps you’re in Taehyung's space, barely a few inches left between you two.

 "God!" You start, and the anger, the jealousy, the ugly ball of insecurity and lust and something you haven't quite found a name for yet all coagulate and rise up your throat, burning your heart in their wake until you are hurting and seething. “I don’t get you, nor do I want to anymore!" The words tumble out, one after another and half thought out but your chest still burns and the ugly ball still feels scorching hot in your throat and you can't bring yourself to stop, to shut up and think. "Stop doing this. Stop flirting with me and stop looking at me with those hooded eyes of yours and for the love of god, do you really need to lick your lip that often? Why don't you carry a lip balm if your lips are that dry, huh?"

 The cross of your eyes is almost painful, but you have started and fuelled by anger and unreciprocated feelings there’s no stopping your steam. "And now this! Stopping the elevator! What the hell is this supposed to mean?" His lips part as if to answer but without waiting for his response, you plow on, "What! Do you actually have an answer? Really? Let's face it; you think I’m some sort of challenge that needs to be conquered. Another notch on your bedpost. You and your stupid smirks and half-lidded eyes and that damn mole on your nose and god, can you just not—"

 The soft pad of his finger on your lips pauses your rant, leaves them parted and your heart hammering while unsaid words clutter the hollow spaces in your throat, tighten around your vocal cords like a noose until they become their own nemesis. 

 "I broke up with her last night," Taehyung says, and from where you are standing so close to him, his breath on your neck, cheeks, lips is too enchanting, too much like something you had hoped and begged and prayed for far too long now. Breathing out harshly you blink yourself back to reality because you must be hearing him wrong. 

  "Huh?"

 His hand slowly comes up to hold your chin, thumb running over your lower lip with a feather-like touch, "I broke up with her last night, went home and came back early because I didn't want to miss you." He says, and your chest feels tight, palms numb and it's only when his hand gently settles over the nape of your neck and you inhale painfully that you realise that you had stopped breathing.

 "Why?" You rasp out. 

  Don't hope. This means nothing. Do not hope. 

 Something twists in your belly, a thread tightens around your heart, and you know, despite it all, that you are hoping. 

 "Why do you think?" He asks instead, and you stifle the sudden desire to bash his head into a wall. 

 "Don't play games with me." 

 A sigh, his breath dancing on your lips and you barely suppress the tingles that burn down your spine, "I'm not. I don't want to, not anymore." The hand resting around your neck curls, fingers caressing the soft skin behind your ear.

 "What do you want then?" Your words are quiet, hope and longing laced into every syllable that you desperately hope to hide but fail. 

 Your heart hammers into your ribs with so much force you are half afraid it will leave them cracked; splintered just like your love for the man who is touching you, holding your entire heart in the palm of his hands while you wait for it to be crushed. Because it will, it's inevitable. Kim Taehyung is a walking heartbreak waiting to happen. All narrow eyes and long nose and devilish smirks, he is too good. Too good for the woman he was with and certainly too good for you. You would be happy if you looked half as good on your wedding day as he regularly does because he is that gorgeous. And unreal, and pretty and it hurts. 

 It hurts because you can never have him and any second now he will push you away and ridicule you for getting flustered so easily and he will never understand, and god it cuts. It tears at you because despite knowing better, you long for him, his touch, his warmth.

 Maybe even his love. But that is one hope you refuse to acknowledge out loud. 

 Your breaths mingle from where you two are standing so close, and part of you aches to reach out, to pull him closer and wrap yourself around him until you can sync the beat of your heart to his, to nestle your face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in, drown in the scent of that spicy cologne that you associate with him and nobody else. Because it's tempting, oh so inviting and he is so so close.

 You could touch his chest, caress the skin peeking from in between the dip of his low neck shirt and it would be easy, he would let you, you know that too but what about after? How do you come back from holding someone your soul is in love with and then pretend that being with them for one night was enough? How does your hope keep living on in the name of that fragment of love? His arms your shelter for one night and then you are back to being strangers, sharing elevators and bumping into each other at the grocery store, pretending all the while that you do not yearn to visit that one night you spent together whenever your head hits the pillow? 

 "I..." Taehyung struggles, chews the words before his lips form them because this is his last chance and if he loses you now, it's over; he knows that too. The pair of you are done playing cat and mouse. 

 "I know my words don't hold a whole lot of value. I could promise you things, but you won't believe me and that's fair. I get it." He admits, another hand coming up until your face is cradled in his open palms, fingers slipping behind the edges of your ears and you will yourself to not drop your gaze, to look into his eyes and search for...love? Honesty? You wish you could say you know what it is that you are hunting for, but held so close all you can think about is the chestnut brown of his eyes, the black that rims them, the high arched brows and the thin, smooth lips and that mole; that mole that you can only see when you are pressed close, a hair's breadth of space between you two. 

 "But...?" You ask, pray, and yet again, against your better judgement hope.

 "But I love you." He confesses, voice forever rich and deep and you feel the hum of his baritone from where your chest is still pulled tight to his. "My love for you is unlike any I have ever known, and it scared me; it still scares me because I don't know. I don't know what I will do if I ever lose you. I care too much, I—" His grip on you tightens and instinctively your hands snake around his waist, clenching the soft cotton of his shirt, nails biting into your skin as his words thread your hopelessly lovesick heart back together; piece by piece.

 "I love you too much." Taehyung whispers and the ice around your heart thaws, his raw confession lighting a fire in your nerves until you are left buzzing from the high of his admission. "Trust me. Just this once. Please." He is vulnerable in his plea, and for the first time you wonder if you had characterised him wrong. Boxed and stored him like a gift on a shelf without bothering to look underneath the paper wrapping.

 Taehyung doesn't have to beg, he doesn't have to try and persuade anyone, and for all the gibes you threw his way, all the daggered words about him dating only for money, you didn't truly believe any of them. Sure, the woman he had been with for the last few months was older (a voice in your head whispers wiser), but that wasn't because she was, as you would often insist, his 'sugar mama', but instead because their interests aligned. Kim Taehyung is a man of taste, whether it be his fondness for a violin's trill, fascination with modern art, or his love for jazz music. He is an enigma and with no small amount of embarrassment you think back to all the times you have bought a book after he made a passing comment on it, searched the pages and the characters to find some semblance of him.

 Maybe you are pathetic, perhaps you are far too infatuated with this man for it to be healthy. Just maybe...

 "No," Taehyung commands, his voice so determined you’re snapped back to the present, head thrown out of the haze your wandering thoughts had created.

 Seeing your obscure expression and strayed eyes (look away because you can't acknowledge how much he matters), he pushes, one hand sliding down to grip your chin and urge you to look him in the eye. "Don't." 

 Maybe he sees something in your eyes, spots your hidden insecurities, reads you like an open book and dog-ears the pages that hold your weakness. 

 "Don't what?" You deflect, gaze drifting away again as you pretend to not know what he means but secretly long for him to keep pushing, to keep trying—your denial’s a facade to hide all your pleas. 

 "Don't do this to me. To us."  

 "You'll hurt me." You protest, a half-hearted attempt at trying to protect your already doomed heart even as your fingers clench tighter, pull him closer.

 "No, I won't." He speaks with certainty that you don't wholly believe but fuelled by far too much love and longing, you don't protest any further and instead toe closer, rise higher, and breathe in the shaky exhale he lets out when your lips skim the sharp curve of his jaw. 

 "I've wanted this for so long." Unadulterated desire courses through your veins at his admission. Even if Taehyung is lying, even if he leaves you stranded after today, you'll live. You'll live on the high of this moment, the memory of his skin under your touch, the crisp of the cotton draped over his lean torso. 

 It's easier to let go and surrender yourself, easier to lay yourself bare because you have already come too far and there is no protecting yourself anymore—your heart is now his to do with.

 Your hands twine around his waist, slide over the vast expanse of his back like he is yours; as though if you try hard enough, you'll leave an imprint, a sign that he belongs to you. Mark him for the rest of eternity and brand him with your name on his heart. 

 Kissing him is easy, the slight ache of staying on your tippy-toes going by unregistered as you get lost in the sensation of his lips, his sighs on your chin, the tickle of his lashes against the high curve of your cheek. 

 The cradle of his palms around your face is gentle, almost careful, as though you are a porcelain doll and he is afraid one harsh move will leave you splintered. Chest tight, you push down the last remaining traces of hesitation clinging inside your throat and twist to catch his lips instead, licking a long strip from the soft cleft of his chin over to his parted lips, dip into the hollow of his mouth and slide over the soft flesh on the inside before you catch his upper lip in between yours and suck.

 His responding groan has you clenching your thighs and you break the kiss, breathing in to replenish the oxygen that doesn't seem as important when his lips are on yours. When your gaze catches his, for once you don't look away, don't force yourself to stop from swimming in the beautiful, clear pool of his eyes.

 "I love you too." Your admission is quiet, more a careful whisper than anything else, as though any louder and you'll break this spell and things will go back to the way they were. He will come to his senses and realise he doesn't love you after all and then you'll go back to being a pining, lovesick fool, only this time with a broken heart and no hope to cling to.

 His eyes grow soft—gentle in the curve of two crescent moons, and you smile your first real smile, the edges twitching and pulling into a gentle grin before you can bite it down and the answering smile that Taehyung rewards you with has your heart squeezing almost painfully inside your chest.

 "Yeah?" He asks as though he already knows the answer but just wants to hear you say it again, profess your love for him again and you do. You say it again and again, press your lips over every inch of his face and emboss the words onto the smooth, unblemished skin.

 Taking in a shuddering breath, you answer from around the suspended ball of disbelief and love in your throat. "Yeah." 

 When the clothes start coming off it’s a gentle, slow affair, the spaces in between filled with tender touches curious to explore the skin that they had desired for so long and open-mouthed kisses pressing promises of forever and happily ever after onto the naked expanse, leaving goosebumps in their wake.  

 Legs twined around his waist like ivy, you arch off the floor. A tug of your hand and his shirt slips low, and then your mouth is pressing warm, wet, kisses, tongue slipping out and desperately tasting his skin, his sweat— him. You lean back and then he's on you, low, low, low until his lips are close enough to skim the edges of your panties and you buckle, arch and push without meaning to as you ache for relief only he can provide. 

 "You are beautiful. So so beautiful. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen." 

 His words are rough, less speech and more growl as he pushes his head closer to your soaking heat and inhales. "Fuck." 

 Breathes turning to hitches, words into gasps, you can scarcely keep your eyes open when he runs a long, slim finger through your folds and circles your wet opening before your walls are pulsing around him, sucking and pulling the finger in as deep as it will go. One and two then three, your cunt can't have enough of his fingers, his heat and him and oh— 

 His lips are velvet against your clit, your body a molten mass of gold moulding itself around his fingers, your sanity and restraint slipping and dripping down onto the carpeted floor from in between the spaces. With the last left strength, you prop yourself onto your elbows and the sight of Taehyung's mouth on your sex is almost enough to send you slipping back down again. His tongue laves across your folds with the desperation of a man parched, caressing every fold, greedily licking away your dripping arousal and moaning out obscenities too vulgar for how early the day is. 

 When you come, it's with a cry that sounds too animalistic to be yours. One that comes from your chest and leaves your back arched like the ends of a boomerang. "Good?" He asks with glistening lips, and you wanna scream, hysterical in your pitch— good? Is there anything better that exists in this world than his lips on you making you come? Again and again, until you can no longer stand the sensitivity? 

 But instead of screaming, or shaking him by his shoulders until it gets through his head, you reply with a spent nod and let your elbows slip. This is what being eaten out by Kim Taehyung feels like. The pleasure coursing through your veins is something far more potent than any you have ever felt before. The blood in your veins thrumming, almost sizzling under the thin layer of your skin. 

 He presses his forehead to yours, rests to catch his breath and with every shuddery inhale you breathe your arousal in, a swipe of your tongue across his glistening lips, and then you can taste it too. It tastes of nothing and yet everything. Coming from his lips, it tastes of what your dreams are built from, like liquified recklessness and yearning and above all —Taehyung. 

 It tastes of him and his smirks and all the kisses you couldn't have and all the kisses you now hope for. 

 His fingers are gentle when they tuck your hair, eyes bright behind the curtain of messy, ink-black strands, "There's a law somewhere that says when you love someone with all your heart, you are unavoidably loved by them as well. Amor ch'a null'amato amar perdona." 

 Your eyes search his, frantically rove all over his face, search the lines under his eyes, pause at the small mole on his nose, and then stop at the sight of the one on his lower lip, the one that your eyes would always drift to every time he'd smirk or grin in the past. Now he's smiling, lips stretched into a soft boxy curve, the mole evident against the edge and you raise a trembling hand, run your thumb across it. Cup his face with both your hands until your vision blurs and then your lips are on his. Locking and licking and your mouth is a leaking faucet of I love you's, hands working to the back of his head and getting lost in those perfectly long, wavy strands. 

 You hope this is the real thing when you wildly take off your dress, rip off his shirt unmindful of the last few buttons that clatter to the floor and undress until the both of you are as bare as you were the day you were born.

 The steel railing is startlingly cold against your rear but before you can wince Taehyung's large hands are on your waist, pulling you closer until all that's on your mind is the feel of him, hard and hot against your dripping heat. His mouth is on your breast, lips sucking marks into the flesh and tying you to him, leaving traces of his presence behind until you can no longer differentiate the ache in your heart from the burn in your belly. 

 Somehow through the haze of want and compulsive need, you collect yourself enough to tell him you're on the pill when he remembers the lack of protection in his wallet, and then he's inside you. The thrust inside is fluid, and you are moaning, keening at your wetness, at how long he is, at how unbearably, entirely full you are. 

 Your name falls from his lips like a prayer, like the last words of a man dying an untimely death, desperate and hurried and like if he takes a second too long he might never get the chance again. The scratch of your nails against his back must hurt, the grip of your heels around his sides must be painful, and still you can't bring yourself to let up; to let go. 

 The air inside becomes humid, reeks of sex and sweat and everything that shouldn't seem so right, and yet does. 

 You come first, hit your peak and crash through it like a ship in a torrential sea, hot and volatile and like something vital that you'll retain even in the afterlife. Taehyung–sweet, sweet Taehyung – helps you ride it out, makes your body sing with the honed practice of a pianist who has spent more decades playing than he can recall. His tongue is on your neck, stroking that one sensitive spot in the hollow of your clavicle while his hand brushes your clit, builds the pleasure and lets it drift, unhurried and soft until you are crying from the overwhelming rightness of it. 

 With a shudder, you finally push his hand away from your quivering heat and bring it to your lips, kiss the bony knuckles and let it rest on your thigh from where he wraps it tight around your waist and drives to chase his own high. 

 Sated you watch Taehyung, catalogue all the features that you had never seen before but up close can. Just in case—just. File them all in a part of your heart where only he resides, a piece you will always come back to, regardless of if the man in your arms chooses to stay or not. You will be selfish with these memories, hoard and treasure them in secrecy until the day you can look back upon them with nothing more than nostalgic fondness. 

 The appearance of a deep furrow on his forehead, between those long arched brows and the breaking rhythm of his thrusts, alerts you to how close he is and you clench. Clench with all the love and devotion you nurture in your heart and hope that somehow it will be enough. If not forever, then at least until you can have your fill, until you can love him for a life's worth and live off on those memories. Live on them like a late mother's half-finished perfume bottle that you take out and sniff on your sorriest days, a push strong enough to keep you going. 

 One more day, then one more and then just one more until you can finally meet him in the afterlife, old and having done all that you had been sent to do. Except for love. You doubt you can ever love like this again. 

 Kissing him after feels like the best kind of heartbreak because you know, somewhere deep in your gut where you house your intuition and insecurities, you know this won't last. 

 Yet you wouldn't take back anything. Your lips form words on Taehyung's shoulder 'i love you so much. i always will', and you tighten your arms around his waist. Anchor him to the present and pray that the defence will be strong enough to keep him with you for a little while more. 

 Just a little.

a/n: the end is up to your interpretation, you are free to imagine whatever end you’d have liked to see. If you enjoyed reading this please let me know through comments, reblogs, tags or asks. the feedback makes me insanely happy and i love hearing from you guys ♡

[pinknatural]

After a long while, Jack straightens back up, wiping away his tears.

“Sorry about your shirt,” he says again. Dean waves his hand in dismissal. What’s some snot and tears? 

“It’s fine,” he says again. “I mean it, kid.”

Jack looks like he might begin to cry all over again, but he sniffs and makes a valiant effort not to. They’re in a motel room--Dean couldn’t bear the Bunker, and Sam and Eileen’s honeymoon phase. He’s happy for them, of course he is, but seeing them so in love is kind of painful, and Dean could tell Sam was trying not to be overt about it to spare Dean’s feelings, and Dean just felt that, well--he might as well remove himself from the situation, at least for a little bit. 

(Plus, now he has some peace and quiet--the motel room is littered with books and research, scrolls and files and other pieces of lore--all on the afterlife, of course. All on how to get there.)

“Okay,” Jack says. “Okay.” He raises a glowing hand to his own forehead, but he pauses when his fingers are about an inch away. He swallows. 

“Come on, kid, what are you waiting for?” Dean asks. 

“I could bring her back,” Jack whispers. “I should bring her back.” 

He lowers his hand, turns a stricken gaze to Dean. 

“Who?” Dean asks. He thinks, Kelly. He thinks, Maggie. He thinks, absurdly, Charlie. 

“Emma,” Jack says. 

Dean feels as if he’s been hit over the head. 

“What?” he says. Has he turned into a fish and been left out on the docks? Where did all the air go?

“You’ve been thinking about her,” Jack says, like a confession. “Praying.” He has, if only because he’s been wallowing in what he can’t have, the husband, the daughter. He has, if only because he’s been wondering if the way to the Empty could be through Purgatory. Would he have time to sweep the place first? Would he be able to find her, unlike the last two times he was there?

“Yeah,” Dean tries to say, but no sound comes out. He tries again. “Yeah. You could really…?”

“I can do anything,” Jack says, with a sad, bitter smile, and Dean reaches for him. Jack falls into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Dean’s back, clinging to his shirt. Dean runs a hand up his back, cups the back of his neck. 

“You don’t have to,” Dean says. It’s one of the hardest things he’s ever said. “God, kid, I’d like nothing more, but you don’t have to. You gotta do what’s best for you, you hear me?”

“I know,” Jack says. He sniffles. Dean thinks he might be crying again. “And I love Claire so much but I just want my sister. Dad, I want to bring her back.”

Dean squeezes his son. He closes his eyes. 

“Then bring her back,” he whispers, and one of Jack’s hands leaves Dean’s back. Golden light shines, starting behind Dean and filling up the room, making it brighter and brighter and Jack gets smaller and smaller and Dean just holds on, tighter and tighter. 

The light fades. 

A little boy has his face buried in Dean’s gut, arms wrapped tight around Dean. They don’t even go all the way around, anymore. Dean runs a hand through Jack’s hair, stunned even though Jack told him this was what he wanted, even though they’d talked and talked about it before Jack decided to go through with it. 

“What?” a tiny voice says, and Dean turns around. 

Emma is standing there, only she’s not--she’s not exactly the Emma Dean remembers. Instead of being sixteen, she’s something like eight years old, eyes wide and hair tangled with leaves. She’s splattered with blood, and wearing the same clothes she’d died in--the same clothes Dean buried her in. They’re too big for her, and she looks like she’s on the verge of tears. 

“What happened?” she asks, looking around the motel room wildly. “Where am I?”

“Emma,” Dean says, untangling himself from the three year old on the bed and kneeling, reaching out gently. He stays near the bed, afraid of spooking her. “You were rescued from Purgatory. You’re safe.” He turns to Jack. “Why is she little?”

“She’s human,” Jack says, shrugging. He’s chewing on the end of his sleeve, eyes wide. His clothes, at least, are three-year-old sized. Dean wonders where he’s supposed to get Emma some clothes, but there’s a pink suitcase sitting beside Dean’s duffel. The sight of it is too much, and he looks back at his daughter. 

“Safe?” Emma repeats, looking down at her hands. She flexes her tiny fingers. 

“Eight years have passed,” Dean says, still holding out his hands--he’s not sure if he’s trying to soothe her or reach for her. “You’re safe, you don’t have to kill anyone, I won’t hurt you.”

Emma looks around again. She sees her suitcase and stares at it, then swings her gaze back around. “Who’s that?” She points at Jack. 

“That’s Jack, that’s my son,” Dean says. “Your brother. He brought you back.”

“How?”

“He was powered up--he was God--but now he’s just a kid,” Dean says. “He, um, wanted to bring you back.”

“Dada was prayin’ for you,” Jack says, voice muffled around the sleeve he’s still chewing. Dean reaches out and gently removes it from his mouth. “He wanted you to come back. I wanted to meet you.”

“Oh,” Emma says. She looks down at her pants. “I’m all dirty.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “The bathroom’s over there if you want to--shower. I can help you if you want.”

Emma shakes her head and reaches for her suitcase. She goes into the bathroom, turning around and looking back at Dean and Jack, eyes wide, until she shuts the door behind her. Dean collapses back onto his feet, running his hands over his face, laughing incredulously. 

“I did good?” Jack asks, sliding off the bed and crawling onto Dean’s lap. “I did good?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Dean says, voice cracking. He hears the shower turn on, the water begin to run. He curls up tight over Jack. “You did great.”

--

The first thing Cas is aware of is big blue eyes. The rest of the features on that face sharpen into a nose and mouth, grace smearing around the small face, and although it seems impossible, it can only be--

“Jack?”

“Daddy!” Jack cries, and he throws himself onto Cas. Cas catches him easily, holds his tiny body within his arms. Oh, he’s so small. His golden wings stretch as big as they go, which is not very big, to wrap themselves around Cas, and reflexively he wraps his own around Jack as well, holding him tight, rocking slightly back and forth.

Then he remembers--everything, and that he’s supposed to be dead, and he looks up.

Green eyes. Freckles, slightly crooked nose, beloved mouth, beloved jawline.

“Cas,” Dean croaks, and he falls to his knees. Cas is on the floor, legs crossed and Jack curled up on his lap. Cas doesn’t want to let go but Jack wiggles away, and Cas is afraid to reach out but helpless to do anything else.

Dean crawls toward him, falls against him. He presses his face into Cas’ neck and breathes, in and out, and Cas thinks he might be crying. But Cas is breathing Dean in, and he smells like the Impala (home) and guns (safety) and lemon (Dean) and Cas’ eyes aren’t very dry, either. 

“You dumb son of a bitch,” Dean says, voice tucked safe into the place between Cas’ neck and shoulder. “You goddamned idiot. You stupid fucker. You dumbass, you, you.”

“Dean,” Cas says, and Dean shudders out a shaky breath, breathes heavily against him. Dean is alive in Cas’ arms, and he couldn’t be happier.

He tilts his gaze up, looking for Jack, and he finds instead a little girl with brown-blonde hair. She’s wearing a pink t-shirt and denim shorts and one of Dean’s flannels. She’s practically swimming in it, but her sleeves are rolled up and her eyes are the same apple-green as Dean’s, and Cas holds Dean tighter. 

“Emma?” he asks. She nods and looks away uncomfortably. 

“Emmie, Emmie, my daddy’s back,” Jack says, bouncing over to her and dancing around, wings flapping madly. 

“Yeah,” Emma says. 

Dean clears his throat and finally leans back from Cas. He reaches out an arm and Emma comes over to him, sitting on the floor beside him and tucking herself against his side. Dean wipes away tears with his other hand as Jack barrels back around, throwing himself into Cas’ lap. Cas holds him and looks around. 

They’re in a motel room, two queen beds, identical to the countless ones Sam and Dean have stayed in over the years. But there’s a pink suitcase next to the TV and a blue duffel with sharks on it beside it. On one of the beds there’s a pair of stuffed rabbits, one pink and one yellow. There are various books and scrolls piled on the little table beside the couch and also piled onto the couch itself. Spell ingredients are on the floor, spread out over a placemat. 

“Daddy,” Emma says, and Cas looks at her, tugging on Dean’s overshirt. His heart melts. Dean deserves nothing less, of course, but he knows what toll gaining then losing a daughter has had on Dean. He’s so glad that Dean can have her back, that she can have Dean, too, that she can have another chance. She deserves it, and already Cas looks at her and sees her hair in a careful braid and her Wonder Woman socks and he knows he would die for her. “If me and Jack are siblings and you’re Jack’s dad and that’s Jack’s dad, too, then. Um.”

She looks at Cas nervously. Dean squeezes her shoulders. 

“Me and Cas have to talk about all that,” Dean says. Cas is astounded that it’s not an instant denial. 

“We do?” he asks, and Dean meets his gaze head on.

“Yeah,” he says. “We got a lotta stuff to talk about, you and me. Kids, why don’t you watch some TV and Cas and I’ll go outside.”

Jack scrambles off of Cas’ lap and turns around, presses a wet kiss to Cas’ cheek, then he climbs onto the bed with the stuffed animals. He grabs onto the yellow bunny and Emma crawls beside him, putting the pink bunny on her lap and pointing the remote at the TV. Cas stands and offers his hand to Dean, who takes it, lets Cas pull him up.

Dean goes outside and Cas follows, of course he does. They don’t let go of each other’s hands. 

“Why are we in a motel?” Cas asks. Dean shrugs. 

“Needed some space,” he says. “Then I wasn’t sure how big of a house to get.”

“A house?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand. “Can’t raise kids in a bunker, come on man.”

“What about Sam?”

“He’s fine,” Dean says. “On a hunt with Eileen.”

“Oh,” Cas says, slightly confused. 

“Yeah, I dunno,” Dean says. “Salt-and-burn in Orlando, I think. So, um, listen, man…”

“Thank you for getting me out of the Empty,” Cas blurts, afraid Dean is about to reject him. He has always known Dean would do so, but he thinks to hear it would be--upsetting.

“Of course,” Dean says. “You’re, um. I couldn’t just leave you there, you’re--”

“Family?” Cas suggests.

“Yeah,” Dean says. He takes a step forward. “Though, you know, I’ve been thinkin’ about what we are to each other.”

“You have?” Cas takes a step back when Dean takes another step forward. 

“Yeah,” Dean breathes. “Living together, raising a kid together, dying for each other. Never wanting to be apart.”

“Oh?” Cas says, and his back hits the wall. Dean stands over him, caging him in with only one hand--the other still wrapped around Cas’ palm, their fingers intertwined. 

“You know what that sounds like?” Dean asks, breath ghosting along Cas’ jaw, and Cas can’t really think. Why is Dean standing so close to him?

“Family?” Cas croaks, brain stuck on the word. Family, they’re family.

“I was thinking it sounded like husbands, Cas,” Dean says, and then Cas doesn’t have to worry about why Dean is standing so close anymore, because Dean kisses him, and Cas’ brain ceases functioning--but it’s okay, because if Dean says they’re husbands, who is Cas to argue?

--

Sam pulls up to the motel after dropping Eileen off at the Bunker. She was tired from driving all night and Sam doesn’t blame her, but he can’t believe he’s missed everything while he went to one measly salt-and-burn.

He parks the car and gets out, crossing the parking lot. He knocks on the door and Claire opens it. She looks the same as always, except she has a purple stuffed bunny peeking out of her jacket pocket. Sam is smart enough not to comment on this. 

She steps aside and lets him in, and Emma squeaks and practically climbs up Dean when she sees him. It’s a work in progress, with her, and Sam feels terrible but he’s not sure what he can do besides give her time, so he looks away and instead turns to Cas, who smiles when he sees him. 

“Sam!” he says, and he stands up from the couch, crosses the room and hugs him. 

“It’s good to see you,” Sam says, clapping Cas on the back.

“Sam!” Jack says, and he barrels towards Sam’s legs with the determination of a battering ram, and Sam intercepts him before he can make contact, picking him up and swinging him over his shoulder. Jack laughs and laughs, and Kaia waves at Sam from her spot curled up on the couch. 

“This motel room is very full,” Sam says, looking around, and Dean grins at him. 

“That’s why we’re shopping, Sammy,” he says, and he points at his laptop. 

“Find anything good?” Sam asks, crossing the room to sit on the couch so he can see the computer. He deposits Jack into Cas’ arms, and Dean comes to sit on his other side. Emma stays on the bed, hiding behind Claire, who’s obviously taking guard-duty pretty seriously since she’s half-glaring at Sam.

Sam looks away and turns his gaze toward the computer. 

“We weren’t finding any good listings so we’re looking for some land, now,” Dean says. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in the Bunker? We’ve got a lotta room,” Sam says. 

“Nah,” Dean says. He slings his arm around Cas, who’s perched on the arm of the couch. “We need a house.”

“Windows,” Cas says solemnly, tangling his and Dean’s fingers, and Sam notes the movement with a pleased smile. 

“But if we build a house we can add-in wards and stuff, right into the foundations,” Dean says. “We can make sure it’s safe, and good.”

“Will you build it?” Sam asks, even though he knows the answer. 

“Damn straight,” Dean says. The silver band on his ring finger flashes as he shuts the laptop. Jack crawls into Kaia’s lap, and she wraps her arms around him. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” she says. 

“Yeah,” Sam says. He meets his brother’s eyes. “Me too.”

(ao3)

[edenmemes]

misc poetry sentence starters

❝  one gets so used to one’s own horrors, one forgets how they must seem to other people.  ❞ ❝  you remind me what love lives in this skin.  ❞ ❝  you are the most phantom-like of all; you are a mere dream.  ❞ ❝  i’m not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck—the places floating, finally legible.  ❞ ❝  the world was made so we can find each other in it.  ❞ ❝  the night isn’t dark; the world is dark. stay with me a little longer.  ❞ ❝  i want you desperately. i want your strength and your softness, your hands, all of you.  ❞ ❝  is that too much to expect? that i would name the stars for you?  ❞ ❝  against your cheek my hand is warm and full of tenderness.  ❞ ❝  the world grows green again when you smile.  ❞ ❝  your share of pains would fill a sea.  ❞ ❝  i’m so stuck on the ‘was’ of people.  ❞ ❝  what i love in you is your power of loving, a bit wild, a bit primitive, but absolute.  ❞ ❝  i like figuring you out. you are so human and puzzling.  ❞ ❝  the unwillingness to try is worse than any failure.  ❞ ❝  you wanted happiness. i can’t blame you for that.  ❞ ❝  i did violence to my own heart.  ❞ ❝  i don’t know how to stay tender with this much blood in my mouth.  ❞ ❝  like a magpie, i am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales and dead languages.  ❞ ❝  and here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue.  ❞ ❝  you kiss the back of my legs and i want to cry.    only the sun has come this close, only the sun.  ❞ ❝  sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof you’ve been ruined.  ❞ ❝  when will it cease, this monstrous rage of yours?  ❞ ❝  i will plant my hands in the garden. i will grow, i know, i know.  ❞ ❝  i had it all and i want it back again.  ❞ ❝  i don’t care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual.  ❞ ❝  we are two reflections that cross swords with each other.  ❞ ❝  as for me, i am a watercolour. i wash off.  ❞ ❝  do you dare send me away as though you were were waiting for something better?  ❞ ❝  my dear, you are in danger of being burned by your own flame.  ❞ ❝  i am three oceans away from my soul.  ❞ ❝  you, occasionally, glimmer with a light i’ve never seen before. it frightens me.  ❞ ❝  i went to sleep last night so i could see you.  ❞ ❝  even the eyes of gods must adjust to light. even gods have gods.  ❞ ❝  how much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?  ❞ ❝  it does me no good to be good to me now.  ❞ ❝  i may look alright, but if you were to look more closely you wouldn’t find a single healthy bit in me.  ❞ ❝  i must clothe myself in other worlds.  ❞ ❝  suffering is the privilege of those who feel.  ❞ ❝  sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.  ❞ ❝  the vigor, the fire, that enables you to love and create. when you lose that, you’ve lost everything.  ❞ ❝  i can be bold, because i have you with me always.  ❞ ❝  you are shaking fists and trembling teeth. i know: you did not mean to be cruel. that does not mean you were kind.  ❞ ❝  not that i want to be a god or a hero, just to change into a tree,  grow for ages, not hurt anyone.  ❞ ❝  i laughed today. for a second i was unhaunted.  ❞ ❝  you are sunlight through a window, which i stand in, warmed.  ❞ ❝  there’s something electric in your blood.  ❞ ❝  you say you are broken,   but broken mirrors like you create the most beautiful patterns of light.  ❞ ❝  time doesn’t obey our commands.  ❞ ❝  i love you quite passionately, and with a touch of tragedy.  ❞ ❝  to feel anything deranges you. to be seen feeling anything strips you naked.  ❞ ❝  i love you --- like a storm bursts overhead --- i must confess it; all the more fiercely because you burn and bite.  ❞ ❝  and i have seen rivers, not unlike you, that failed to find their way back.  ❞ ❝  i am less a god now that you’ve touched me.  ❞ ❝  your words are gentle; but my blood runs cold to think what plots you may be nursing deep within your heart.  ❞ ❝  you said i killed you --- haunt me then.  ❞ ❝  your soul is frail and solemn, loyal and spring-like.  ❞ ❝  you look like you’ve eaten the sun, like you drank so much sunlight you’re drowning in it.  ❞ ❝  strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.  ❞ ❝  you will hear thunder and remember me.  ❞ ❝  ever think it’s possible for us to be happy?  ❞ ❝  and i would wonder across all the deserts of this world, even after death, to search for you.  ❞ ❝  since we’re bound to be something, why not together?  ❞ ❝  i am ashes were once i was fire.  ❞ ❝  this mouth will destroy you the moment you mistake it for something soft, for something that is yours.  ❞ ❝  it’s no easy thing to bear, the weight of sweetness.  ❞ ❝  kill the light! i’d rather wallow in the dark.  ❞ ❝  i have thought of you often since the darkness.  ❞ ❝  with your presence the sun becomes irrelevant.  ❞ ❝  there is no god left in this skin. there’s just the ash. just the ash.  ❞ ❝  open your eyes, look more sharply, see me as i am.  ❞ ❝  what the hell is tragedy? i am.  ❞ ❝  i’ve got a lot of feeling for you. you’re kind.  ❞ ❝  how beautiful it is, how beautiful, that glow before the stars break.  ❞ ❝  so much to do today: kill memory, kill pain, turn heart into a stone, and yet prepare to live again.  ❞ ❝  i am myself. that is not enough.  ❞ ❝  i may be mad, god-seized, but i will stand outside my madness.  ❞ ❝  my power, which to me is still a curse ---  ❞ ❝  ocean sea with its caressing swell; it has so often cooled my heart.  ❞ ❝  do you bathe in perfume, and dry yourself in light?  ❞ ❝  i like you; your eyes are full of language.  ❞ ❝  let me tell you what i do know.    i am more than one thing and not all of those things are good.  ❞ ❝  you are the cause and the cure --- both.  ❞ ❝  i have kisses for the back of your neck.  ❞ ❝  your beautiful glance is unbearably cruel.  ❞ ❝  we might meet again, someday between dreams at dawn.  ❞ ❝  suffering is a terrible fire; it either purifies or destroys.  ❞ ❝  lately it hurts more to imagine you are a stranger rather than a destroyer.  ❞ ❝  and i say to myself: a moon will rise from my darkness.  ❞ ❝  since you walked out on me, i’m getting lovelier by the hour. i glow like a corpse in the dark.  ❞ ❝  i will not whine. i will obey and be forever still.  ❞ ❝  you move like the moon.  ❞ ❝  my eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears.  ❞ ❝  in your eyes, the fires of twilight.  ❞ ❝  do not haunt my soul; i have done well forgetting you.  ❞ ❝  i am no one. i cannot love. it’s in my blood.  ❞ ❝  you’re wearing your armor to protect your heart. who can blame you? it only makes sense in a world like this one.  ❞ ❝  you are not real. you are a dream of a dream.  ❞ ❝  there are so many things i’m not allowed to tell you.  ❞ ❝  i am indeed a shameless, evil-minded and abominable creature.  ❞ ❝  come this evening --- i am eager for stars.  ❞ ❝  i am on fire with that soft sound you make, in uttering my name.  ❞ ❝  i want you mostly in the morning when my soul is weak from dreaming.  ❞ ❝  to me you are the desert and the sea; everything secretive.  ❞ ❝  i thought i was wounded to the core but i was only bruised.  ❞ ❝  it is a dead heart. it is inside of me. it is a stranger.  ❞ ❝  i live --- but i’m mutilated.  ❞ ❝  if there is a light then i am going to swallow it.    if there is a god then i’m going to make him cry.  ❞ ❝  i am condemned to be a saint or a monster: unable to be the one, unwilling to be the other.  ❞ ❝  you will open your wounds and make them a garden.  ❞ ❝  i come home --- and i feel like a ghost returning its haunt.  ❞ ❝  i planted roses, but without you they were thorns.  ❞ ❝  everything inside me is in revolt.  ❞ ❝  how this darkness soaks me through and through.  ❞ ❝  give me my robe, put on my crown; i have immortal longings in me.  ❞ ❝  say something dangerous like i love you.  ❞ ❝  listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?  ❞ ❝  in times of crisis, we must decide again and again whom we love.  ❞ ❝  breathe the scent of little, earthly things. let the twilight touch you.  ❞ ❝  my heart is just like the ocean, has storm and calm and tides.  ❞ ❝  you became for me a sacred being, not to be touched save in adoring thoughts.  ❞ ❝  gods are stubborn. so am i.  ❞ ❝  is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?  ❞ ❝  there’s something soft in me. i killed it and it’s rotting.  ❞ ❝  beware. beware. there is a tenderness.  ❞ ❝  half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. real gods require blood.  ❞ ❝  i’m alive. like a wound, a flower in the flesh, the path of aching blood is open within me.  ❞ ❝  you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth.  ❞ ❝  i have it in me...to scare myself with my own desert places.  ❞ ❝  my mouth still houses century-old magic.     in my ears i hear a ringing and singing and no god.  ❞ ❝  keep talking. i’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice.  ❞ ❝  i’m full of poetry now. rot and poetry. rotten poetry.  ❞ ❝  this skin is sick with loneliness.  ❞ ❝  memories are sharp. they bite. i have spent most of my life trying to grow a thicker skin just to make sure i would not bleed out whenever i felt those teeth scrape up against me.  ❞ ❝  i wonder if i will ever find a language to speak of the things that haunt me the most.  ❞ ❝  after fury, what do you do with the remains?  ❞ ❝  come on, dance with me. the earth is spinning. we can’t just stand on it.  ❞ ❝  let’s admit, without apology, what we do together.  ❞ ❝  try to find the right place for yourself. if you can’t find it, at least dream of it.  ❞ ❝  it takes grace to remain kind in cruel situations.  ❞ ❝  i am too full of life to be half-loved.  ❞ ❝  today you want nothing because wanting comes too close to feeling.  ❞ ❝  there’s nothing more terrible, more alluring, more mysterious than love.  ❞ ❝  heavenly wine and roses seem to whisper to me when you smile.  ❞ ❝  my soul is devoutly and wholly under your spell.  ❞ ❝  will you see the human in my being?  ❞ ❝  if i had a flower for every time i thought of you…i could walk through my garden forever.  ❞ ❝  part broken part whole, you begin again.  ❞ ❝  i don’t know if love’s a feeling. sometimes i think it’s a matter of seeing. seeing you.  ❞ ❝  i wonder which will get you killed faster, your loyalty or your stubbornness?  ❞ ❝  whether you come as a lover or an exeutioner, i am ready to receive you.  ❞ ❝  i think i understand your longing. it looks so much like mine.  ❞ ❝  i’ve had so many knives stuck into me. when they hand me a flower, i can’t quite make out what it is.  ❞ ❝  i like the sea: we understand one another. it is always yearning, sighing for something it cannot have; so am i.  ❞ ❝  do i not live? badly, i know, but i live.  ❞ ❝  something of you stuck with me. a splinter.  ❞ ❝  i clung to your hands so that something human might exist in the chaos.  ❞ ❝  sometimes i shut my eyes, and shut my heart towards you, and try hard to forget you because you grieve me so, but you’ll never go away. oh you never will.  ❞ ❝  my golden love, if only you knew, what precious honey you are for me.  ❞ ❝  i had an old wound once, but it is healing.  ❞ ❝  always this in-betweenness, this almost, this it might be that...  ❞ ❝  when i close my eyes, i see you. when i open my eyes i want to see you.  ❞ ❝  dark as it is --- you see, that little flickering, is the light of my soul.  ❞ ❝  am i a monster or is this what it means to be a person?  ❞ ❝  i am talking about evil. it blooms. it eats. it grins.  ❞ ❝  sapphires are those eyes of yours, ravishingly sweet.  ❞

[silversatoru]

Hello! I wanted to request for a chubby reader x Levi oneshot. I feel like there aren’t many stories that have chubby readers ): As for the storyline, I’m not sure if it falls in the angst or hurt/comfort category. It would be the reader feeling insecure about themselves because they have a harder time training than the others (them blaming it on their own weight) and seeing how everyone is much thinner than them, they start avoiding food. To not make it look suspicious, they’d go into the kitchen alone and put the food away along with the left overs. The reader would act normal with Levi and he doesn’t suspect anything at first. Later on, the reader would push themselves harder to the point where they’d train on their own whenever they had to chance so they can lose weight and improve their training. At this point, Levi starts noticing the reader looking paler than usual and the slight difference in their weight. One day during training, the reader ends up fainting from exhaustion and dehydration. They wake up on Levis’s bed with him looking over them. He asks what happened and the reader lies by saying they didn’t drink enough water. Levi calls it bs and ask if they think he’s stupid and goes on to tell them about how they noticed the reader sneaking off into the kitchen with a plate and coming out without it. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but he started putting the pieces together. They end up telling Levi the truth, the way they feel towards themself and how they don’t like the fact that they’re bigger than Levi. He comforts the reader and lets them know that they’re an idiot for thinking that way, etc. Thank you! I’m so sorry if it sounds so cheesy!

hello dear!! i dont think your idea was cheesy at all, i love it actually. these kind of issues live very close to my heart, so writing about them is always really fun for me. that being said,, this fic definitely got very dark and very real, and i would advise everyone to read the warnings before deciding to read this <33

empty

levi ackerman x gn!reader

synopsis: levi catches you skipping meals and does what he can to help

tags/warnings: eating disorder, skipping meals, hurt/comfort, but it does have a happy ending! 

word count: 2.2k 

Throbbing headaches and hollow, gnawing pains in your stomach — they’ve quickly become your new normal. You see everything through a hazy fog these days, nothing feels real and everything hurts but it’s worth it — that’s what you keep saying to yourself. You’re tired of lacking the same agility, momentum, and grace that your thinner counterparts have. 

Your weight was always something that ate away at the back of your head, but joining the scout regiment multiplied it tenfold. You were constantly working twice as hard as your fellow scouts, and it seemed like it was never enough. Everyone around you was not only ridiculously athletic, but so fucking thin. You didn’t hate your comrades for their bodies and the way they were born, but you made up for it by inflicting all of the hate onto yourself.

You wonder if anyone notices your zombie eyes or the abnormal paleness to your face — god, you hope they don’t. The last thing you want to do is have to confront your feelings and admit what you’ve been doing lately. Every night you shamefully sneak back into the kitchen and pour your plate of food into the large pot of leftovers. You pick at food here and there when your friends are watching, but behind closed doors you haven’t eaten much of anything lately. Your body is running on empty, and it’s only a matter of time before it fully catches up to you. 

You hear your last name echo from across the training fields, slowly turning around to see an angry captain sulking towards you. His face was twisted into an unpleasant grimace, his eyebrows knitted together into what almost looked like concern. 

“I’m excusing you from the remainder of training, leave,” his words were flat, but there was a subtle emotional edge. 

“Sorry, what?” you gave him a confused look — Captain Levi never excused anyone from training, not unless they were practically on their deathbed. 

“Go home, and eat a big dinner tonight, your energy has been less than adequate lately,” his face softened slightly, “I expect you to be back to normal by tomorrow. Your skills and abilities are needed here, so go get some rest and be better tomorrow, yeah?”

“But, I-,” you stammered, trying to come up with some kind of valid excuse. 

“That’s an order, cadet”. 

His words surprised you, and before you could even rack your brain for an appropriate way to respond, he was turned on his heels and walking away. You swallowed thickly, your throat dry and stuffed full with anxiety. 

Reluctantly, you followed his orders and made your way back to the Scout’s base early. You grabbed a stack of fresh clothing from your room before heading to the showers and scrubbing yourself free of all the sweat and grime from training. You were careful to avoid mirrors when you navigated bathrooms, and tonight was no exception, your eyes glued to the tiled floor. After showering, you hesitantly walked to the kitchen, preparing a plate of food and bringing it back to your room.

That food stared you in the eyes for hours, taunting you and teasing you and making intense nausea creep up your spine.  Tears were stinging the backs of your eyes and your lungs were shaking with heavy, anxiety-filled breaths. You couldn't do it, and you were overwhelmed with shame and guilt. If you couldn’t do it for Levi, you were hopeless that you’d be able to do it for anyone, never mind for yourself. 

After making countless pitiful attempts to take a bite of your untouched meal, you decided it was going back into the leftover pot — just like everything else. The other scouts should have returned and been sleeping by now anyway, you’d just silently creep down the hallway, dump the food, and creep back, no harm no foul. 

Except for that a certain short, dark-haired captain was standing at the end of the hallway — you didn't notice him, but he certainly noticed you. A boiling anger rippled up inside him as he felt an overwhelming disappointment in your actions. He’d been suspecting this kind of behavior for a while now, but watching you tip-toe down the hall and into the kitchen with an uneaten plate of food confirmed all of his suspicions. 

You could barely crawl out of bed the next morning, your ribs aching and your head pounding with a dull pain. You grasped at your tall dresser, catching your balance as you dangerously swayed back and forth for a few seconds. After regaining consciousness and stability you carefully changed into your uniform, having to stop and take breaks every few seconds because you were running out of breath. Your body felt utterly devoid of any kind of energy, and you wondered — when was the last time I actually ate something? 

It was far enough back that you couldn’t quite remember, maybe a few days at this point, you really weren’t sure anymore. You’d have to suck it up for training though, because the last thing you wanted was to be confronted by the captain again. 

You chugged back a full glass of water before lacing up your boots and throwing on a convincing facade. People don’t seem to notice something is wrong as long as you're smiling, laughing, and going along with what they say — it’s easy enough to fly under the radar of your fellow scouts. 

Levi’s radar is a little sharper though, and he keeps a close eye on you from the second you walk up to the training grounds. He’s disappointed in your hand to hand combat — it’s sloppy, slow, predictable. Your hands look shaky too, and maybe it's the light playing tricks on him but it looks like the color is draining from your face. 

Things are feeling deplorable on your side — you can barely stand anymore, never mind throw punches or avoid the oncoming attacks. Your vision was starting to tunnel, foggy black surrounding your periphery as you began to lose feeling in your fingertips. You tried desperately to cling onto whatever semblance of consciousness you had left, but failed miserably, your body collapsing to the hard earth beneath you. 

The soft glow of warm candles illuminated the walls around you when you finally woke up from the earlier incident. This wasn’t your room, where the hell were you? You uncomfortably shifted to the side and flinched when you saw your captain sitting in a chair in front of you. His arms were crossed and one of his legs was propped on top of the other, an icey look in his eyes.

“What happened today?” His words were very short and his tone was flooded with irritation — he didn’t even give you a chance to take in your surroundings.

“Ah- I didn’t sleep well last night,” you lied, “And maybe I haven’t been drinking enough water or something”. 

“I’m offended that you think I would fall for such a pitiful lie,” He clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth, “I saw you sneak into the kitchen last night, how long have you been doing that?” 

Your eyes grew wide with anxiety, your heart abruptly dropping to the floor — you made sure to go extra late last night, why the hell was he still up?

You stayed quiet for a moment, pondering over how honest you should be with Levi right now. The two of you had always been a little closer than he was with the other scouts, but unfortunately there was no room for things like love in this world. You also assumed that maybe he never reciprocated your feelings because of your weight — but that was just more toxic fuel to the fire blossoming in your head. 

“Pretty long,” you sighed, ultimately deciding to be fully honest with him, because knowing Levi, he’d continue to see right through your lies anyway. 

“I figured,” He grumbled, uncrossing his legs and leaning back into his chair, “Why?” 

“Everyone around me is thin, I stick out. And, I’m not as agile or flexible as the other scouts either. I just thought that maybe...,” you bit down hard on your bottom lip, rolling onto your back so you wouldn’t have to look at him, “I thought my weight bothered you too, and also that I’d be more useful to the scouts if I was skinnier”. 

“You think I’d like you better if you were dead?” Levi was leaning closer now, heat boiling in his eyes, “Because that’s where you’re headed right now. If you truly think you’ll be more helpful to the scouts when you’re six feet under, you’re delusional. And who the hell gave you the idea that your weight bothered me?”

His harsh words were cold slap in the face, your eyes burning and threatening to spill over with tears. You didn’t want to die, not really, you just didn’t want to hate yourself anymore. 

“No one! I don’t know, I just thought, maybe because I was bigger than you-,” You continued to stammer over your words, tears beginning to leak down your cheeks. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he waved you off, not wanting to push the issue further, “You’re wrong, and I’m hurt that you’d even think that. I’ve never once thought that you were anything other than the way you should be”.

“I’m sorry,” your voice was weak and shaky, but your heart was pounding against your chest at his words. 

“I’m not the person you should be apologizing to, that’s something you owe to yourself” he shook his head and stood up to retrieve two small bowls of food from a nearby table, “I brought you something to eat”.

You watched him intently, pondering over his words about apologizing to yourself.

“It’s only a bowl of soup, so you can start small, yeah?” He offered one of the bowls to you, which you hesitantly took into your hands as you sat up. 

He sat down again across from you again, leaning back and taking a sip of broth from his bowl. You were grateful that he was here, that he was eating with you — it made things a little easier. You grasped the spoon in your hands and scooped up some brothy vegetables before lifting them into your mouth. 

“Good, finish the bowl,” nodded at you, giving you a reassuring look and lifting his own bowl to his lips again. 

The two of you ate in silence until you were finished, and then he sat the bowls back on his nightstand before finding a seat next to you on his bed. 

“Stay here tonight,” he stared at you with his signature tired eyes, but there were hints of concern laced through them now, “We’ll have breakfast together in the morning”. 

“Okay,” you gave him a weak nod, trying desperately to bottle up your growing emotions, but they were becoming too much to bear. 

Small sobs began to rack through your body, your chest tightening and your stomach lurching with anxiety. You were experiencing so many feelings tonight — eating for the first time in days and being here with Levi, it was overwhelming to say the least. 

You could barely see the captain through your blurry vision, but you could feel his arms maneuver themselves around you and pull you against his chest. You stayed like that for a while, Levi’s arms delicately holding you in place while quiet sobs worked their way out of your lips. 

“You’ve dug yourself into a deep hole, I won’t lie to you,” you heard him let out a tired sigh, “And it’s gonna take time and effort for you to dig your way out, but you’ll get there. We’ll start by having breakfast and dinner together every night, how does that sound? Just you and me, no one else has to watch”. 

You nuzzled a tiny nod into his chest, your tears finally running dry. It was a terrifying thought, eating normal again, but you were starting to feel hopeful that you might actually be able to do it. 

And so the two of you met every morning and every evening for your scheduled meals, and day by day things began to get easier. You even found yourself staying over in Levi’s room after dinner and into the morning for breakfast sometimes. Spending so much time together was definitely pushing the two of you to address the feelings you’d been hiding for so long. 

But not everything was perfect, it would be irrational to think it would be. You still have bad nights, where eating is so hard you break down into tears, and where you want nothing more than to rid yourself of the food in your system. It’s a draining process, but Levi works hard to make sure you stay on track with your progress. 

It’s slow, but eventually your face starts to glow again, your skin gets smooth and soft, and the aching pains in your body start to fade. Your war with your body is far from over, but you’re doing what you can, and you’re healing yourself one day at a time.

thank u for reading this, and now i would like to give you a gentle reminder to do something nice for your body today. eating disorders and mental illnesses are huge mountains to climb over, but taking things one day at a time makes it a little easier. try and eat a meal today (even if it’s small), go to sleep early and get some rest, take a shower and rub lotion all over your legs so they feel nice against your blankets when you lay in bed. baby steps are better than no steps at all, so be patient with yourself. n go drink some water, ur body loves that shit

[lovecinnatwist]

How would you go about writing omega Jason with Alpha Dick?

Man oh man- Omega!Jason with Alpha!Dick is always such a bop.

It depends really! I see so many fics with insecure Jason thinking Dick is too good for him which is nice and definitely in character- but sometimes it makes me crave the other end of the spectrum?

Like a confident, sexy Jason who teases Dick with his scent and body until the alpha wants to implode? I also like the idea of Jason being raised by an Omeganist!Alfred and Omega!Talia to be badass, sassy and sensual. Bras? Suppressants? Painful heats?

Not for Jason Todd!

He embraces his Omega-ninity and it wreaks havoc on Dick's hormones. Dick being a more conservative alpha would definitely find himself overwhelmed but enamored!

Here's something playful with a clumsy Alpha!Dick and confident pack Omega!Jason!

Tiddies Out - JayDick

Tags: Omegaverse, AlphaDick, OmegaJason, Pining, Crack treated Seriously, Lactating, Heat Cycles, Omega Tim, Alpha Bruce, Pup Damian- Just Dick being an obvious pining idiot and Jason enjoying his reactions-

Jason doesn’t mind being an omega. How could he when it’s one of the superior options? While Alpha’s often lost themselves to aggression during rutting season and beta’s scrambled to placate them- Omega’s got to sit back and watch the show.

Being the object of an alpha’s fascination has many perks. First off? The gifts. Lavish offerings make their way to him with little to no effort. Weaponry from Talia, Expensive silks and poisons from Ras, The latest tech from Tim and Bruce. It's an endless parade really. One of the few things that make this more bearable to put up with.

He’s a heavy milker. Always has been.

Maybe it’s from growing up in an abusive household. Perhaps it's in response to being closer to the pack’s pups or hell, maybe his body is just gearing up for the imaginary children it wants to have. Regardless of the reason Jason’s tits are aching.

They seem extra tender tonight. The cold dingy air does little to ease the tension under his armor. He shifts and the way his pads squish under bullet proof chest plates is a pain. He curses and tries to ignore it. Something that’s getting harder as the cotton under his clothing reaches its limit. Tsk- 4 hours his ass. It’s barely been 2 and he’s about to make a mess of his gear.

As annoying as it is. He reluctantly reaches into his kit to get two fresh napkins to change. Other omega’s might be shy to do this in public but Jason has always been more practical about it. Breasts are breasts, no reason to get all crazy about it.

Though it probably didn’t hurt that Jason himself had a nice rack. He knows what the other heroes say about him behind his back. His figure has never been more appreciated than now in his prime. The dip in the pit did wonders at helping him bulk up. Thighs thick, emphasising his trim waist. In the throws of season his ample chest gives him an illusion of an hourglass figure. While some people would say omega’s should be small and dainty, he has yet to meet an alpha or beta who can resist him.

Not to be vain but he is nothing else if not attractive.

He’s got his top half way off when the sound of a near violent thud echoes out in the darkness. The hiss of pain gives away the alpha before his scent can. Jason doesn’t even turn in his direction. Instead he keeps his attention on the sopping pads under the compression shirt. He hisses as the gentle adhesive pulls from his throbbing mamories.

“ You alright over there goldie? “

He gets a groan for an answer. A nicer person would have maybe let the other man know about his current state of undress. Too bad that Jason isn’t exactly known for being ‘nice’. He carefully wraps up one cotton cloth. Once he’s clean and dry, he applies another. It’s quick and easy work. The slight chill does wonders against his flush skin.

The worn form of Nightwing crawls from the side of the building. There’s a pretty good bruise on his cheek Jason is 90% sure that the acrobat had a less than graceful landing. He’s always been weird about nudity. Even back when they mostly had the same parts. He rolls his eyes as the man pointedly tries not to look at him. He can’t help scoffing at the false modesty.

“ Hood. You shouldn’t do this out in the open like this. Anyone could see you. “

Everyone knows Jason is an omega, by extension that means Red Hood. It’s one of the reasons why his territory is so well protected. No one wants to cross an omega. While the fangs in their mouths were now more for scruffing kits, no one had forgotten the days when they were for hunting prey and tearing out throats.

He would flash his at Dick but he’s wearing his helmet and would probably just looks stupid. He manages to get the other pad off. It’s absolutely drenched. His left teet is definitely working harder than the right. The sheer weight of the cotton makes a loud squelch as it hits the little plastic bag at his feet.

He snorts. “ And you know what they’d say N? Best tits in Gotham. “

The alpha’s face is anything but amused. The furrow of his brow and spike in his scent is territorial and aggressive. It’s laughable really considering the fact that between the two of them, Jason is actually the one in charge of protecting the pack. It’s all a part of being the lead omega.

Whether Bruce or Dick want to accept it or not.

“ Stop objectifying yourself like that. “

Jason enjoys the feeling of being clean and dry as he gets the other cotton adhesive on. It’s a welcome sensation. Especially when he straightens his armor and it’s a little less chafing and tight.

“ It’s only objectication if I say I’m only a nice pair of tits Wing. Luckily I’ve got a nice set of thighs too.“

He pays Dick no mind as he stands and packs away his used pads to be thrown away later. He might have to call it an early night at the rate. With the way fall is quickly approaching his heat is just dying to make an appearance. Perhaps he could get away with offering himself to the foster system. With the amount of milk he’s making now it would be better for the pups who need it to benefit instead of it all going to the trash.

“ Hood! “ The sound is a scandalized growl. It’s funny enough that Jason throws his head back and laughs free and clear. With the voice modulator it’s mean and menacing. Amusement bubbles in his chest. He can’t help taking off his helmet so that Dick can take in just how wide his smile is.

“ Sorry Wing. I’m a pretty girl. What can I say? “

Talia is nothing but progressive. While many omega’s in the west suffer from low self esteem. Jason learned his worth quickly. Confidence is beauty. The more one loves themselves, adores them selves and takes time to know themselves the more they blossom. It’s a deep healing that not everyone gets to understand. A privilege for a few chosen omegas. He cocks his head and smiles and see’s the exact moment Dick starts losing his footing in the conversation.

The alpha is tongue tied.

“ That’s not what I mean and you know it Hood. “

Jason shrugs. Once he’s got his stuff away he’s ready to run roofs and actually get some work done.

“ Sorry Goldie. It’s 2021 and haven’t you heard? Red Hood says free the tiddies. “

He doesn’t wait for a response as he makes a running start towards the edge of the building. It’s always such a thrill. He tucks a bit to clear the gap. The moment his legs touch the concrete the sound is silent despite the bulk of his frame. Dick calls after him but he loses the words in the wind. Laughter bubbles up in his throat. He wouldn’t be a prude just because his family wanted to be sexually repressed more than they wanted to be happy.

Dick doesn’t try to catch up with him and Jason finishes the night patrolling with Tim and Stephanie.

He manages to get an entire three hours out of the next set of pads. Instead of changing out in the open he accepts Alfred’s invitation back at the manor for a warm bath and cookies. Tim stares at his chest while Jason gets himself decent.

Tim is a gorgeous omega, with a slender petite frame and porcelain doll-like features. He always seems to get shy in the presence of Jason’s more unconventional curves.

Jason knows what low self esteem looks like. The younger omega wears it no matter how much bravo he tries to exude. Jason brushes against him briefly and lightly. His usual fragrance is marshmellowy from the sweetness of milk that clings to it.

There’s an immediate blush as Tim ducks away. Clearly he’s embarrassed from being caught. Though in reality where is the shame in a little boob appreciation amongst omegas?

“ You know Timmy, you gotta stop wearing bras. Maybe if you show a glimpse of those pretty pink nips Kon would take the hint. “

Tim goes red from his ears to his chest. Jason can practically see the steam coming from his ears. He slaps his hands over his petite breast quick enough to hurt. Jason wants to let him scamper off but instead he presses into his space even more. Long gone is the perfume of pup, now that Tim has come fully into his omega hood. Every day his scent leans more and more towards caramel and sugar.

“ Uhg you’re such a jerk. “

Tim tries to dodge out of his hold but Jason gets him anyway. The omega yelps and Jason ducks him right between each swollen peck. They are red and tender from patrol. He hasn’t put on new pads yet so some milk beads at his nipples. The little shriek Tim lets out is hilarious.

“ You’re going to get milk in my hair! Jason stop- God you suck- “

The omega fights and Jason lets him go before the two actually get into it. It’s light and playful. Well for the most part. Tim gets some milk on his face and the teen honest to God looks terrified. He curses all the way to the shower stall to take another quick bath all while Jason cackles at his misfortune.

“ I swear to God, when I start milking I'm going to get you back Ten fold! “

Jason rolls his eyes. As if.The last thing Jason’s afraid of is milk. It’s a natural thing. God everyone in this pack is repressed.

“ We’ll see about that Timberella! “

The omega hisses and Jason has to hold back a laugh as he leaves the shower. He’s so light and high from the interaction that he completely for gos a shirt. Not that he really wants to wear one. Not with how milk heavy and tender his chest is. Alfred’s always been pretty cool about it too. Being from the 60’s and all that jazz.

Jason maybe gets half way through the cave before the sound of metal crashing draws his attention. Dick walks cleanly into one of the metal tables in the middle of the lab space, knocking over tools and gadgets.

Bruce is thoroughly unimpressed from where he’s helping Damian stretch before bed. He’s in half of his costume, suppressors and scent blockers gone. The sheer disappointment in Damian’s gaze is astonishing.

“ Richard, please control yourself. “

The alpha looks like a deer caught in headlights, his mortification absolutely palpable in the air.

Jason does catch his eyes on his chest though. He smirks and sees the moment horror grows in those bright blue eyes. Instead of heading towards the stairs he decides to circle back towards the group.

Bruce chuffs from his position on the floor. He doesn’t stop what he’s doing but does tilt towards him in reverence. It’s been the biggest change in their dynamic. Bruce finally learning to respect Jason as not only a pack mate, but the pack omega. He greets him with a scenting.

Unlike Dick the alpha seems to pay little attention to his milking.

Damian’s puppy nose twitches as he leans towards him. It makes his heart flutter really. While Damian would never ask, Jason has thought of offering his breast many times. While Technically too old for it, they’ve all done their fair share of growing up too quickly. Something that Jason Laments as well as appreciates.

He scents Damian more thoroughly than Bruce, making him bristle. The boy tries to move out of his hold, hands swatting him away.

“ Todd cease your pestering immediately! If I smell of milk my peers will assume I still breastfeed. “

Jason snorts and pulls back from the prickly pup. Bruce gets a stupid fond look on his face and for a brief moment he feels it echoing on his lips.

“ And what’s wrong with that? If your pack omega is milking of course as a pup you’re welcome to it. “

Damian’s green eyes widen a fraction. His mouth opens in disbelief. Clearly, Damian in fact did not know that. Bruce stares as well, his scent turning into a sweet blend of ‘love-admiration-awe’. It draws a shiver up Jason’s spine. The tender mix of affection from his pack blankets over him like a net of spun sugar.

Jason doesn’t know why he feels drawn to look at Dick. The alpha hasn’t said anything in the past minute. He cuts his gaze to the stone still alpha and his heart flutters in excitement. The looks of jealousy and want is so strong that his intentions sparkle clear like aquamarine in shallow ocean waters.

The alpha is so much more honest when he thinks Jason isn’t looking.

He grins at Dick.

The alpha immediately shrinks in shame and embarrassment.

“ And of course any alpha spending my heat with me. “

[sprnklersplashes]

clean

cw for mentions of suicide, self-harm, death, drugs, and also for making out while naked (but not sex)

Seeing an accident happen in Sunnyvale feels unnatural. It’s like seeing a two-headed deer, or a car flying in the sky. Sam can’t even focus on how terrible it is, or hope that nobody was hurt. All she can think is how unnatural it is, to see such a horrible sight in such a near-perfect place.

It’s the price for a curse breaking, she supposes. The scales of fate are even now.

Her shoulders twitch, her feet move to go over and help, as is her instinct, but before she can, Deena’s hand is on her shoulder, a pained gasp escaping her mouth, that turns into a whimper that almost stops Sam’s heart. Again. She turns, her mouth running dry, and finds Deena’s free hand pressed against her stomach. She remembers, sees it in her mind like a movie, even if the picture is hazy. The tunnels. Her hands, Deena’s throat. Deena’s house. A drumstick breaking over her knee. Deena hitting the floor beside her, and her not caring.

“No,” she mutters. “Oh, no.”

“Sam,” Deena whispers. She sounds so tired, so beyond exhausted, yet she’s still strong. Her Deena. She’s always thought she was tough,everyone did, but now she’s learned she’s tougher than the actual Devil himself. “It wasn’t you.” Sam opens her mouth-to protest, to apologise- but Deena shakes her head, the movement making her wince, and that crooked half-grin she loves appears on her face. She always loved that smile, and would love it now if the situation weren’t so dire. “Don’t even try with me.”

She gasps again, her knees buckle, and Sam gently guides her to the ground, one hand around her torso, Deena gripping her other for dear life.

“We can talk about all that later,” she interrupts. She takes Deena’s face and tilts it towards her, trying desperately to remember her first aid training. Her eyes are clear, or clear-ish, but her skin is ashen and pale and her cheek is clammy against her palm. “Right now, we just need to worry about getting you to a hospital.”

For the first time in a long, long time, she feels like luck or fate must be on her side, because no sooner have the words left her mouth than the siren of an ambulance pierces the air, and a miniature fleet of the white vehicles comes into view. They’re all rushing towards the scene of the accident, obviously, but Sam sees into the window of one. A young driver looks through and her eyes double in size when she sees the pair of them, then triple when she sees Deena. What they must look like to her. They’d look a wreck to anyone, even the lowest of the low in Shadyside, but here in Sunnyvale, where not even the grass grows out of place, she’d wager they’re a scary sight.

Thankfully, this one ambulance pulls up beside them, and the driver calls something into the radio as she jumps out and runs their way. Sam would feel guilty for taking someone else’s help, but as she looks across the road, her guilt eases, for this anyway. There are three ambulances at the scene of the crash, and a siren signalling another’s approach. The lack of emergencies these past 30 years has clearly made them unsure of what to do in this case, and when folks don’t know what to do, they do everything.

“Are you two okay?” 

“She’s hurt,” Sam replies. “Please, please, help her, she’s hurt.” The paramedic runs to Deena’s side, and Sam watches her cringe as she moves her hand away. Sam takes a deep breath and hopes that the lack of practice for Sunnyvale’s medical staff doesn’t have any other consequences. Deena rests her head on her shoulder, and panic flares up in her for a moment before she sees her eyes are still open. Will she ever stop panicking? She’s been doing scared almost her whole life.

“Okay, sweetie,” the paramedic said. “The good news is, it’s not too deep and you got here in time.” The girl gives Deena what is meant to be a supportive smile and shakes her shoulder slightly, keeping her from slipping away. “And we’ll have to get you checked out at the hospital, but I don’t think anything’s ruptured in there okay?”

“Okay,” she pants.

“Good girl. Now, we’re going to get you into the ambulance okay?” She looks over at Sam, seriousness creeping into her face like clouds across a blue sky. “Can you help carry her?” She nods, her grip already tightening. She doesn’t say that she’ll carry her forever if she has to. It doesn’t feel fair to dump that on this poor unsuspecting girl. “Okay, great. On three, right hon? One… two… three.”

Sam hates hospitals. Hospitals mean grandpa forgot to take his heart medication again and it’s her last chance to say goodbye. It means another person was beaten up behind the school, or drank too much at a party, or popped all those pills she can’t name. It means someone has thrown themselves off the bridge because it was the only way out of Shadyside. It means she just watched her boyfriend get stabbed through the heart and is now running from an undead murder, brandishing a knife meant for her.

She hates hospitals, and this is no exception. Even if the news is good.

Deena sits on the bed, her skin as white as the sheets she rests on, her shirt rolled up to show the new scar that graces her abdomen. Right in the side, just above her hip. The doctor found specs of wood in it. Tiny splinters buried in the skin.

“Well, she’s incredibly fortunate,” the doctor says. He talks about her like she isn’t here, and on the one hand that annoys Sam, because it’s almost certainly linked to that ‘Shadysiders are subhuman’ bullshit. The curse may be broken, but assholes are assholes, and a prejudiced town is even harder to get rid of than blood magic. But on the other hand, Deena’s on so much pain medication she might as well not be here. Her eyes are clouded, but not from shock, and she alternates between running her fingers along her new scars and tracing patterns on the back of Sam’s hand. “Like she said, nothing was ruptured, although I’d say you got here in the nick of time. Good thing she patched herself up.”

Deena’s makeshift bandage sits on the table behind her, little more than a bloodstained cloth. Sam can’t bring herself to look at it.

“But I have to ask, Samantha,” he says. She avoids his eyes deliberately, keeping them trained on Deena and her scars. “What happened?”

She considers lying, because she’s too tired and how would she ever explain? How could she explain the hell they’ve been through in the past day? Who would believe her if she did?

She could lie, and maybe she should, but she doesn’t. Because this whole horrible, ugly story began with lies, and continued with them. They lied and lied, and this town was built upon it while Shadyside was ruined by it. It’s over, and she’s making sure it stays over.

“Nick Goode.” She says the words through gritted teeth, against a raw throat. The Doctor shakes his head, as if he misheard her. And Deena frowns, clarity beginning to come to her, silently asking what she’s doing. Sam just takes her hand, a whisper of a smile on her face. This must be what taking revenge feels like. Damn, it feels good.

“What happened to her was Nick Goode.”

Deena is discharged from hospital within a few hours. In that time, Sam gets a few things done. First off, she tells the lady at the front desk to put it under her mother’s insurance. Second, she waits until Deena falls asleep, a combination of her own body and the meds, and slips out to the payphone outside. She slides a quarter in and calls Josh, tells him that Deena’s okay, that she’s with her, that she’s in the hospital, and that she’s going to be okay. She rattles them off like they’re facts for a school presentation and doesn’t breathe until she’s finished, sagging against the wall of the booth. On the other line, Josh absorbs what she said and she said, her nails scratching against her wrist. She expects a colourful array of curse words, or for him to hang up on her without a word. She’d hardly blame him.

“And are you okay?” is what he says instead.

“Um… yeah,” she says. “Heart still beating. Lungs still breathing. And um…. I’m me.” She shrugs and rakes a hand through her hair. “It’s gone. It’s over.”

“Yeah.” He sounds so happy, so triumphant, and she can feel his smile even if he’s all the way over in Shadyside. “It’s over.”

Once those two words had broken her heart, spat at her by Deena in an angry, bitter wave, a final goodbye from the best thing in her life. Now they keep her heart beating, a promise that the darkness that ruined so many lives is gone now. Forever.

Having Deena Johnson in her house also feels unnatural. Like seeing a lion wandering around the mall. She looks so out of place here and well, so does Sam. Because this house, and everything in it, it’s all fake. It was all part of her and her mom’s so-called New Life, out of Shadyside. A Better Life, with a better school and better jobs and better extra-curriculars and better people. Better friends, her mom had said out loud. Better influences, she had said with her face. It was going to be better, safer, happier. Her mom believed it, and for the briefest period of time, she believed it too. Thought that the big house and the red cheer uniform would fix all of her problems.

She was never meant to be in this house, she realises. That’s why it didn’t feel right to her, even when all her things were moved in here. She was always meant to be in Shadyside, not because of the curse not letting her escape. But because of Deena. Wherever Deena is, that’s where she’s meant to be.

“God I need a shower,” Deena announces, her voice half-shaking with laughter. It’s also rusty and hoarse, from screaming and overuse and who knows what else. She holds out her arms, a shaky smile on her face. Her face is streaked with red, her hands caked in dirt, her nails rimmed with grey. Sam looks down and finds her own hands looking similar. Her clothes stick to her body, almost feeling like a second, grimy skin. Her body has been put through everything it can be put through, her bones feel so weary and fragile she fears she could break if she moves too suddenly. It’ll take weeks, months, years to fix herself, if she ever can. But a wash might be a good start.

“Me too,” she says, and she takes Deena’s hand and leads her upstairs.

They shower together, it’s decided with just a glance. Sam isn’t comfortable letting Deena out of her sight for longer than two minutes. It might be over, but they can’t be sure. They don’t know what could be sitting in the darkness, behind the corners, on the other side of doors. If the past days have taught them anything, it’s that nothing is certain. Nothing is set in stone. The curse wasn’t, in the end, but peace isn’t guaranteed either.

So Deena follows her into the little ensuite bathroom, letting out a low whistle as she enters.

“Fancy,” she says. “Like one of those little hotel bathrooms.”

“It’s not that fancy,” she mutters. But it is. Because of Goode. Her house, like everyone else’s in Sunnyvale, is built on the blood of those victims. This house was built some time in the 1920s, according to the realtor. 

Billy Barker. He was 1922.

The pretty house isn’t quite so pretty in this light.

“Hey.” Deena’s hand is on her shoulder, her hair tickling her cheek. Her other arm wraps around her waist and pulls her closer, and it’s only then Sam realises she’s taken her shirt off. Deena rests her chin on her shoulder and she feels, rather than sees, the coy grin on her face. “You need some help?”

She lets Deena pull her shirt off her body, her fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake. In return, her hands slowly undo the button on the waistband of Deena’s jeans and pull them off her legs as she pulls her shoes off with considerably less grace. In other circumstances, the sight of Deena in her underwear would send her mind straight to the gutter, and she’d take her to the bed rather than the shower. But her mind has been invaded and pulled apart and literally brought back from the dead. So she just pulls Deena’s underwear off her, leads her into the shower, and lets the hot water run off them both.

She hadn’t realised how cold she was until the water hits her, a yelp escaping her body as it does so. It burns her skin, turning it from white to red. Deena’s eyes widen, and her hand reaches up to turn it off, but she just shakes her head, her hand grasping Deena’s. The water might be hot, but she can feel it. It’s the first thing, other than Deena, that she can feel since she first heard her name be whispered in Deena’s room, and so she embraces it. Deena doesn’t question it, an understanding in her eyes without anything being said.

Sam’s eyes roam over her girlfriend’s body, but it doesn’t bring the rush of heat to her cheeks it normally would. Instead all she can focus on is the dirt and dust smeared across her skin, followed by trails of blood. It almost forms a barrier around her body, save for the pristine bandage on her side. Without thinking, her hand reaches out and her fingertips graze the fabric, her touch gentle over the wound.

“You’ll get it wet,” she whispers.

“It’s okay. The doctor gave me a couple more just in case.” Sam nods, but doesn’t look away from it until Deena lifts her chin, making her eyes meet hers. “It’s okay,” she says, more forcefully this time.

“Okay.” She looks at Deena again before lifting a bottle down from the shelf and squeezing  a generous amount onto the palm of her hand, a gentle orange fragrance filling the air between them. “Here.” She rubs her hand over Deena’s shoulder before running it down her side, and watches as the dirt of the past few days begins to strip away. She keeps going, her hand moving across her stomach, over her hip, along her chest, bending down to get her legs. She keeps looking up at Deena, searching for a sign to stop, but she doesn’t get one. She only gets a soft, contented smile, and so she keeps going. She only applies pressure where she needs to, where stubborn bits of dirt refuse to come off. She gets them, and watches with satisfaction as it peels away, revealing the brown skin beneath. She lifts Deena’s hand and turns it over, her fingers pusing between Deena’s, her thumb rubbing at her girlfriend’s wrist until it’s clean again. She takes the chance to press a kiss to the skin, the gesture quick and simple. She smells faintly of oranges and overwhelmingly like her, like the jackets Deena used to hang around her shoulders.

Excitement curls her toes when she thinks about the possibility of wearing that jacket again.

“Here,” Deena says. “Turn around.” Sam does as instructed, and then feels Deena’s hands on her skin; her fingers running down her spine and back up before she pushes her hair off her shoulder and scrubs at the back of her neck, on her shoulders. She hadn’t realised how dirty she was, nor how much she needed this. Not just the wash. Deena’s hands on her body. Not fighting or begging or holding her back. Gentle. Careful. Handling her like she’s something precious, rather than pushing her away. How much she needed to care for Deena too, after everything. To embrace her rather than claw at her neck, not stopping until it snapped. It wasn’t her, Deena said, but she now knows exactly how it feels to have her hands wrapped around Deena’s throat.

She closes her eyes and pretends the water running down her face is from the shower.

“Babe.” Deena’s hands are on her hips, rubbing in slow, small circles. “You okay?” Sam exhales slowly. She doesn’t answer because the word ‘okay’ seems to have lost all meaning now. ‘Okay’ now just means ‘alive’. Not perfect, not sane, maybe not safe, but alive. She doesn’t answer, instead turns around in Deena’s arms. She reaches up to caress her cheek, wiping away the grime as she does so. She still looks the same, despite everything they’ve been through. Wrecked and exhausted and broken, but still her. Still Deena. Still perfect.

“I love you,” she says. Deena smiles, and opens her mouth to say something else, but her lips touch hers before she can. The kiss is desperate, hungry, making up for so many lost months and driven by raw need for both of them. Teeth tug on her bottom lip, a small moan escapes the back of Deena’s throat. Sam tilts her head as her hand comes up the back of Deena’s neck, tangling in her hair. It all comes crashing down, the past days hitting her like a waterfall; everything she did, everything they lost, everything Deena risked, and it just makes her kiss her harder. Like she’ll die if she doesn’t feel her touch again. Their bare legs tangle until they’re only standing up through luck and will power, their hips pressed against each other’s like jigsaw pieces.

“I love you too,” Deena replies when they come up for air. “Here, let me do your hair.”

She turns around as Deena’s fingers comb through her hair, shaking out the knots and the God-knows-what-else. A shiver runs up Sam’s back as she works, and she doesn’t need to turn around to see the teasing smile on her girlfriend’s face. 

“We should do this more often,” she says. It almost slips out without thought. “You. Me. Showering.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Deena replies. She feels the water on her head, followed by Deena’s fingers running through the now-clean strands. “Will you do me?”

She obliges, of course. She delicately works the shampoo through her curls, pausing to ask if she’s hurting her. Deena chuckles warmly and assures her she’s doing fine. Her fingers catch on knots and she undoes them gently, and she rubs and rubs until the blood matting her hair is gone, leaving only soft, glossy curls behind.

While she works, Deena lifts her hand and writes in the steam on the door. She writes an S and a D, and a cross between them. She draws a heart, big enough to capture their two initials. Sam laughs, really laughs, and it feels both wonderful and alien.

“That is so middle school,” she says.

“I think we’ve earned a little middle school,” she replies. She turns around in her arms, the water soaking her newly-cleaned hair. She leans in, slowly, and begins the kiss tentatively, as if it’s their first. Sam responds in kind, too tired to go any further.

Soon, they’ll realise they can’t stay in the shower forever, and they’ll get out and dry off. Sam will hand Deena a sweatshirt and her cheeks will turn pink. Soon they will fall asleep on Sam’s bed, still on top of the covers, their exhaustion finally catching up with them. Deena will wake first, images of Sarah Fier tangled in her mind, so much she needs to say to this girl who lost so much. Then Deena will fall back asleep, and then Sam will wake, a scream caught in her throat. Deena will hold her, and whisper that she’s here, that she’s okay. Deena will doze off, and wake with Kate’s name on her lips this time, and this time Sam will hold her until the tears stop. Eventually they’ll pick a video, something easy they liked in middle school, and watch it on the TV in Sam’s room, bodies pressed together, Deena’s head on Sam’s shoulder, two shaking hands joined atop the covers. Sam’s mother will come in, and bawk at the sight of Deena, and Deena’s chin will raise triumphantly. And Sam will fall in love all over again.

But that’s for later, and for now they just kiss, and kiss, and kiss.

support me on ko-fi

[halloweenhoneylover]

the window

summary: reader gives spencer a really cute holiday gift, and he really, really appreciates it (spencer reid x gn!reader)

word count: 2.7k

author’s note: this was supposed to be a blurb lmao. also anon, u did not specify gender, so this is gender neutral!!! also, this is for the holiday season and isn’t specific to christmas (aside from mentions of secret santa gift exchange). also also, spencer knits canonically.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

Rolling your eyes, you closed the seemingly menacing pop-up on your screen and continued to finish up your paperwork. A few seconds passed before a second pop-up appeared.

DO NOT CLOSE MY MESSAGES!!!

You heaved a sigh and stood, making your way to Garcia’s lair. Pushing the door open, you skipped a greeting entirely and chided, “Dude, you gotta stop sending scary pop-ups to my computer. People are gonna start thinking that unsubs are hacking the FBI and threatening agents.”

From beneath her horn-rimmed glasses, Penelope tutted and chewed the end of her pen. “You are no fun. Besides, you are forgetting my immensely cool and mysterious origin story. ‘The Black Queen’ was not one of the good guys!”

“That’s true,” you admitted, “but you’re one of us now, so that means no more suspicious messages unless you want to be fired.”

She gave you a contemptuous glare, “Not gonna happen. Also, I’m really shocked that you thought you could distract me from the matter at hand.”

Furrowing your brow, you replied, “I don’t even know what the matter at hand is.”

Garcia’s smirk curled devilishly. “You and Reid.”

Further confusion ensued. “And what about us?”

She groaned and threw her head back, “Oh my god, you really are dragging this out. I know that you did not get him for Secret Santa, but you still got him a present.” The quirking of her eyebrows was enough to indicate that she meant more than what she was saying, and you were hesitant to explore the implications.

“Okay, first of all, it is illegal to look at my credit card history, and secondly, he is my best friend, so yes, I got him a present. Is that a crime?”

“Certainly not...but this does solidify the fact that you’re in love with him.”

“Dear god, Garcia, I am not in love with Spencer Reid.”

The look she gave you was one of utter incredulity. Her disbelief was so strong in fact that she did not deign your statement worthy of verbal response. Instead, she sat there. Staring. And under her rather unnerving gaze, you began to fidget, your resolve slowly dissolving. Squeezing your eyes shut, you relented. 

“Okay, maybe I am the littlest, tiniest bit in love with Spencer Reid.”

“Well, duh, but what I really need to know is when you’re gonna tell him.”

“When? Garcia, this is not a ‘when’ question. Actually, it’s not a question at all because never in a million years would I ever tell him.”

“Why not?” she exclaimed, gesturing with her pen still in hand. “You spend almost all of your time together, at work and at home! You guys go to bookstores and museums and cafes. He talks about his silly little statistics, and you listen, and you make your silly little jokes, and he laughs; you’re a match made in heaven! And he’s so obviously into you! That boy writes the definition of heart eyes every time he looks at you.”

Steeling your jaw, you rebutted, “That’s just not true.” Your voice faltered. “Sure, I’ve noticed a certain...affection, but he does not love me in the same way I love him.” You let out a shaky breath before deciding to continue. “Did you know that in all of our years of friendship he’s never touched me? I mean sure, it’s happened once or twice in the field, but that was always an accident. And yeah, I know he has his thing with germs, but don’t you think if he liked me as anything more than a friend, he would have done something by now? A pinky promise, a teasing elbow jab—I don’t know—something?”

Penelope’s face softened, and she tried to recover your confidence. “He’s like that with everyone! He likes his space. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him initiate contact with anyone on the team.”

 “But isn’t that the point, Garcia? I’m just like everyone else to him. He wants space from me.” Bitterness roiled in your stomach and dripped from your tongue. “Not very romantic, huh?” 

Trying to piece together a counterargument, she stumbled slightly, “No, I will give you that.” She paused. “But I think he’s just scared. Not of germs, not of you, but of his feelings for you. He’s not the most well-adjusted person I know.”

You chuckled lightly, gradually resuming your normally light-hearted disposition, “I would agree.”

“Well, I hope he likes his present.”

The semblance of a tired smile graced your face. “Yeah, me too.” 

You turned to walk out and had almost made it out the door when her voice stopped you. “Also, I will stop sending suspicious pop-ups to your computer.”

Peeking back through the doorway, you grinned.“I think it’d be for the best. Texting does exist for a reason.”

——— 

It had been a really good day. It wasn’t often where an entire day in the bullpen passed only with friends and laughter and love and light, but today was one of them. Snow fell silently outside the windows, but everything inside felt warm like laughing so hard that your cheeks ache and your stomach hurts.

By now, a sort of daze had befallen the team as the giddiness wore on and the alcohol set in, fuzzing eyes and minds. Most everyone had paired off after the gift exchange a few minutes prior, but no one had drifted too far. (Maybe it was the team instinct: never stray too far from the pack, but it was also likely that everyone just enjoyed the proximity to their loved ones, their family.) Garcia seemed to be in heaven, tucked into Morgan’s side on a couch that had been dragged haphazardly into the bullpen, and murmured conversation stretched on with intermittent peals of laughter. Predictably, Hotch and Rossi had sequestered themselves to a nearby desk, their scotch glasses never dry and grins never fading. (Hotch during the holidays was something special. His often frigid demeanor thawed, and out from the ice peeked his former self who wasn’t so serious. (His rare giggles were quite the surprise though.)) Emily and JJ sat on the latter’s desk, discussing anything and everything (except for psychopathic murderers), while you had pulled your chair up to sit beside Spencer at his desk. 

“So are you pleased about your gift from Rossi?” you asked, a faint grin playing at your lips.

“I am,” he replied, clearly enthused. “But I don’t think I’ll ever understand how he managed to get an authentic TARDIS key.” His finger traced the edge of the authenticity certificate Rossi had bestowed on him that sat on his desk; the key was already hanging around his neck.

You raised your eyebrows and nodded. “Well, money is a powerful thing.”

“True,” he mused before furrowing his brow. “But that’s another thing, the expense limit is not a suggestion, but he always treats it like it is. Puts all the rest of us to shame.”

“There’s no shame in an inexpensive gift!” you argued. “As long as time or thought was put in, it doesn’t matter.”

“Penelope surely didn’t skimp on time spent for yours,” he said, pointing to the homemade knitted hat and glove set on the desk beside you.

“No, I did not!” she yelled from her spot on the couch, somehow having managed to pick up on your conversation, and you laughed. “Lots and lots of time and love was poured into those!” Her speech was slightly slurred as her eggnog intake began to infringe on her lucidity.

“I know this, and I love you for it,” you beamed at her.

“I love you too.” She proceeded to bury her face in Derek’s shoulder who could only chuckle at her antics. 

You picked up a glove and inspected it. “I truly cannot comprehend how she made these. Circular knitting needles are my living hell.”

Sitting up with renewed interest, Spencer said, “If you need help with them, I could lend a hand. I knit my mom a sweater this year, and I think I finally understand how they work if you ever wanted me to show you.”

“I’d love that.” Hopefully, the flush of your cheeks could be blamed on the wine you had had. “Speaking of your mom, how is she? Are you excited to see her?”

The corners of his mouth turned up, and he nodded. “She’s good; her nurse said she’s been doing really well lately. She’s less paranoid, more alert, so I’m really excited. I think this will be a good trip.”

“I’m so glad!” You sat there with a dumb smile for a moment, your mind lagging for a moment (damn wine) before realization crashed onto you. “Wait, speaking of your mom, I have something for you!” He cocked his head to the side as you stood up and went to your desk, rifling through one of the drawers. Pulling out a neatly wrapped gift, you trotted back over and offered it to him. “This is for you.”

He took it, running a hand over the wrapping paper (it was the one with cowboys wearing Santa hats that you had found when shopping together a couple weeks before, his favorite). “(Y/N), you didn’t have to get me anything.”

Shrugging lightly, you said, “Yeah, I know we did the whole gift exchange thing, but I saw it, and I thought of you and had to get it.” And you definitely did not actively seek this out for him in the search for his perfect present. Which is something somebody who is definitely not in love with him would do.

He looked up at you, eyes already glassy and searching your face for something. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, but then he met your gaze with unwavering certainty. “Thank you, (Y/N/N).”

“No problem, ya big sap, now open it already.” 

Ever the cautious one, he opened it carefully, sliding a finger under the edge of the paper and gently easing the tape up. The small action of unwrapping a present so attentively was just so Spencer your heart swelled as you suppressed the growing grin. From the paper emerged a book.

“‘A Collection of Poems by Geoffrey Chaucer,’” he murmured, smoothing a hand over the cover.

When he didn’t immediately react, seemingly frozen, nerves crept up the back of your neck, and you sputtered out some sort of reasoning. “I know your mom used to read Chaucer to you; you mentioned ‘The Parliament of Fowls’ when we worked the Fisher King case, and it’s in this collection, and I thought it’d be fun for you to take it to Vegas and read it together and—”

Your explanation came to an abrupt halt as Spencer threw his arms around you, enveloping you in a bone-crushing hug. Immediately melting into it, you embraced him with a similar intensity and buried your face in his neck. Something in his touch allowed you to let go, and it felt like the moment you could finally exhale. 

A breath you’d been holding for longer than you could remember. 

You could smell the cologne that he wore for ‘special occasions’ and his shampoo and something so faint but so undeniably him, and his hand slid up to the back of your head, cradling it in the most tender fashion, and you felt like you could cry. So you pulled him closer, and he did the same.

The hug definitely lasted longer than what most people would find comfortable, but neither of you could be convinced to retreat until you became aware of the silence that had settled over the bullpen. You felt the many pairs of eyes on you, and it pained you to pry yourself off of Spencer. Breathless, you looked around at the shocked faces of your co-workers who sat with mouths agape and eyes wide. You coughed slightly to try to ease the tension and then for some reason beyond your knowledge, you decided to wave at them in the most awkward fashion. Sitting back down, you could feel stares lingering as conversation resumed, and you looked up at Reid who looked like a deer in headlights. You laughed quietly, tugging his sleeve until he received the memo and sat down again. 

He cleared his throat and avoided eye contact, glancing at his present. “Thank you for the book, (Y/N/N).”

“You’re welcome,” you replied, your tone earnest as ever. Still reeling from the hug, you faintly became aware of the speed of your heartbeat and unconsciously brought a hand to your chest. You attempted fruitlessly to sort through your raging thoughts, while across from you, Spencer tried to think of something, anything to say now. 

He couldn’t really believe he’d done it. His germaphobia remained everpresent, but somehow the emotion welling in his chest at your sincerity and benevolence had overridden it, and he felt helpless in stopping himself. His heart had lurched in his chest as if it was suddenly struck with the need to be in your hands, propelling him forward. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t wanted to. He had wanted to for so long, but he’d never mustered the courage before. There was something so special, so intimate about touch, and so many people gave it so freely, and he just didn’t understand how they could allow themselves the indulgence. The absolute luxury of giving and receiving love. Spencer often felt like he sat by a window, watching his life pass by outside of it, and he had always wanted to open it, to really experience all the joy and all the grief and all the love that was waiting for him, but it was scary to open himself up to those feelings and the hurt that could ensue. So, he usually sat discontented by his window. But today, it was like he’d grabbed a hammer and smashed the glass completely and stepped through to be able to return the love you had offered him. 

It felt so good.

But now, he had no idea what to do. He stood there in the midst of the shattered glass, and deep down, he knew had to take the last couple steps to get to you, but he didn’t know how. 

His fingers fidgeted in his lap as he analyzed your blank face, trying to find something to give him the next direction when a realization hit him. “I didn’t get you anything!”

Drawn back from the depths of whatever thought you had been stuck in, you met his gaze and shook your head. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I broke the gift exchange rules to get you something, so you had no way of knowing.”

“But I feel terrible.” His eyebrows drew together, and he frantically tried to think of some way to repay you. “You get me an incredibly lovely and wonderfully thoughtful gift, and I’m the loser who didn’t get his best friend a present!”

“Spencer—”

“Wait!” he interrupted, a revelation arriving. (He knew how to take the last steps.) “When I get back after the holidays, do you want to get dinner with me? Then, we can go to the bookstore on 10th that you love, and you can pick out a book, and I’ll pay.”

Your eyes widened further than you thought possible, and your heart which had only partially recovered was off to the races once again. You decided to take the plunge and ask the burning question. “Do you—um, do you mean like a date?”

“Yeah,” he answered, beaming so brightly. “Yes. Like a date. If you want to.”

You held each other’s gaze, and the warmth that had filled the bullpen all day filled your chests, and you smiled so hard your faces hurt. 

So silly, you thought, to have wasted all this time boarding up my affection and keeping it tucked away, safe and useless.

So ridiculous, he thought, to have sat by that stupid window for so many years when the real thing feels so sweet.

“I think I’d like that a lot.”

[ginnyweasely]

DO I WANNA KNOW [DRACO MALFOY X READER]

pairing: draco malfoy x reader (fem!)

warnings: swearing, angsty, drinking, nothing else but just shit ton of angst oops

summary: draco and the reader are broken up and draco realizes his mistake too late, but is willing to do anything to make it up to the reader, even if it means telling the reader his dark secret

word count: 3.8k+

A/N: this is pt.2 of honest!! i’m so grateful for all of ur feedback on it and yall asked so you shall receive!! to so this is rlly based on do i wanna know by arctic monkeys cause i was listening to it while writing so it just happened!! 

PART 1 (HONEST)

MASTERLIST /  SEND REQUEST/ASKS HERE  /  TAGLIST

It had been exactly two months since Draco had last talked to you, two months since he had last seen you properly, two months since he felt your warm presence gracing his.

He was in his own personal hell, desperately seeking your touch, the sight of you, the sound of your pretty laughs filling the room, eyes glimmering as soon as yours met his, he was suffering even though he knew very well he had dug his own grave, dragging both of you into this mess.

Seeing you in the hallways, or catching glimpses of you in the common room, and in some classes wasn’t enough for him, he wanted to be able to be in your presence, be next to you, even if it meant you paid no mind to him or actively loathed him, because he knew you did loathe him, he could sense the dirty looks Pansy and Daphne actively gave him.

He didn’t blame you, he didn’t blame anyone else but himself, maybe he did blame a bit of it on his father, but no this was fully his fault, and he felt as though he had no choice but to suffer.

He had tried his hardest to not run after you that day, and he had done everything in him to not come to your dorm late at night, begging for forgiveness, crawling upon your feet to take him back, but the thought about even forgetting seemed impossible for him.

It had happened earlier that week when Draco came into the common room alone, sitting at one of the couches mindlessly, soon enough the sound of the gramophone in the common room catching his attention, he liked the tune at first and his foot slowly started to tap the ground, but seconds later, his mind drifted off, to where it was not supposed to, to you. 

This happened a day later, same tune, you were still on his mind, and another day later… soon enough Draco found himself going to the common room at night, drunk out of his mind, with a bottle of fire whiskey in his hands, playing the tune while he thought about you, playing it on repeat for hours and hours… 

This wasn’t really the only reason why he felt as though he couldn’t forget about you either, you were always appearing in his dreams, every week, every day, non stop. 

And the worst of it all was that he would wake up from these dreams, expecting to find you laying on your back, your eyelashes resting on your cheeks, sleeping peacefully, but instead he would almost always be met with the blankness next to him, reminding him that his dreams were the only way he could have you.

It wasn’t any easy for you either. Draco was something you had never experienced before, first real love, first real feelings, first someone you planned a future with, it couldn’t have been easy to just erase someone like that. 

Your mind was stuck on him all the time, you wanted to loathe him but at the same time there were too many feelings involved that you possibly couldn’t bare to hate him, it was hard for you the most at the first two weeks, as you always find yourself sobbing into your pillow whilst attempting to fall asleep. 

But after the mark of two months, you seemed to be regaining your life back, the bubbly personality you once lost was starting to appear again, possibly with the help of Pansy and Daphne, hell even with the help of Blaise and even Crabbe and Goyle too. 

     ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃                    ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃                   ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃      

You were laying down on your bed quietly, mind wandering off to god knows where as a quiet tune could be heard in the background that you paid no attention to.

A knock on your door startled you as you were devouring the pages of the new book you acquired from the library, cautiously you went up to door as you weren’t expecting anyone to come.

Daphne and Pansy were supposed to be out tonight, doing god knows what with another pack of Slytherins, in the hopes of having a fun night, but you even though they had begged for you to come, rather wanted to spend the night in, still not feeling ready enough to participate in those sort of activities.

You opened the door knob hesitantly as you reached the door, as soon as you opened the door, you felt your stomach churn in the sight in front of you.

A very drunk, messy looking Draco stood there, looking as apologetic as ever, but your soft interior started to wear down as soon as you came back to your senses.

“What the hell are you doing here?” You asked rather not very calmly, as a drunk Draco hiccuped, his gaze fixated on you.

“C-can we talk…” He slurred as his eyes pointed to your room, wanting to be invited in. But you didn’t seem to be having it as you blocked his view and crossed your arms against your chest frustrated.

“Why on earth did you assume that I would want to talk to you?” You responded harshly as Draco’s eyes sorrowed at your now rigid stance.

His posture was fixed as his gaze was still on you, burning your skin with his seemingly but sharp looks, making you feel exposed in front of him. 

He took a step closer towards you, almost stumbling as in doing so, “Please… I just want to talk.” He slurred his words again as a scent of fire whiskey hit your face, filling your senses with the smell of alcohol, your eyes never breaking contact with his, and your heart dropping as his face was inches away from yours.

“You’re drunk.” You stated firmly, your lips formed into a thin line, even though it was deeply killing you inside to be standing this close to him, his presence making you all kinds of fucked up in your stomach, as you couldn’t understand whether that was good or not. 

A little chuckle escaped from his lips,  “I can’t cope with it, Y/N…” He slurred painfully as your eyes slowly wandered towards the floor, not knowing how to look him in the eyes when hearing those words. 

“I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about you, every fucking time I sleep, I see you, I dreamt about you nearly every time this week.” Your breath hitched at his words, your throat drying up quickly as your feelings for him coming back up in the seeming of seconds. 

Draco didn’t seem like he was going to stop talking now, he cleared his throat, “I… I found this tune that makes me think of you, and I… I play it on repeat every night, when the fire whiskey painfully burns my throat, but I still don’t know what aches the most, my throat or the thought of you I can’t get out of my mind…” Draco confesses more out of truthfulness rather than drunk.

His grey eyes burning through your soft ones, feeling every emotion and agony he feels through his eyes, a breath of sigh escapes your mouth as you attempt to escape the affect he has on you by ruffling your hand through your hair nervously. 

“I know I’ve had a few drinks and there… but every time, every fucking time I drink, anything at all, my mind drifts off to you immediately, searching for you intensely as it does so, it seems even my eyes crave you deeply.” Draco slurs again, a weak smile playing on his lips as he attempts to get closer to you, making you gulp hardly.

“You don’t even know what you’re saying, Draco…” You murmured as you coughed mainly to get yourself together as another chuckle came out of Draco’s mouth. 

“But darling, isn’t that what the night were mainly made for? Saying things that you can’t say tomorrow?” Draco stumbled again in his place after his last words, leaving you no choice but to handle him. 

“We are not going to talk Draco, I don’t want anything to do with you…” You announced ever so quietly as Draco frowned visibly, “However since I am an idiot, I can’t leave you like this… So as soon as you sober up, you’re going to go to your stupid dorm and you’re not going to come back here to me, you understand?” You asked rather harshly now as a drunk Draco nodded vigorously. 

No matter what happened between you two, you knew that you would always have a soft spot for Draco, even though you seemed to “loathe” him now, a part of you could never turn him down when he was at his most vulnerable state.

You sighed as you let the mess of a boy in, taking away his flask and swapping it with a bottle of water, in attempts of sobering him up, and in attempts of trying to stop him from complimenting you, even though you were secretly enjoying him whispering sweet nothings to you.

     ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃                    ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃                   ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃      

It had been a week from Draco showing up absolutely pissed drunk in your front door, a week since Pansy got mad at you for even attempting to let him in, a week since your head had been puzzled with the thoughts of Draco. 

You sighed deeply as you dug into your food, taking a quick bite happily, “So you really are gonna reject him, Y/N?” Daphne asked nudging your shoulder as Blaise turned his attention to you. 

“Reject who, exactly?” Blaise questioned curiously, probably to inform Draco, you sighed as your head shot up towards the Slytherin who was slowly leaving the table inches away from you. 

“He asked me to go get some sweets and stuff at Hogsmeade.” You murmured as Blaise’s eyes widened, “And what did you say to him?” He asked curiously as you shook your head shyly, “I said no, I don’t know if I am ready for stuff like this…” You admitted sincerely as a sigh of relief came from Blaise’s mouth that you seemed to miss.

“At least come to the party tonight then, Y/N!” Pansy insisted as you shook your head uncomfortably, “Oh please you must!” Daphne added as a sigh left your lips quickly. 

“I’ll think about it guys…” You said slowly as Daphne squealed in happiness, “Yes! This is gonna be so much fun.” She announced as Blaise gave you a sympathetic smile that you weakly returned.

     ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃                    ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃                   ᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃      

“Draco, I’ve got something to tell you!” Blaise called out after Draco but he didn’t seem to pay a mind as he kept rushing out, “Not now Blaise, I’ve got stuff to do.” Draco hissed basically but Blaise wasn’t interested in letting go.

“It’s important!” Blaise almost yelled as he was still attempting to catch up to Draco, but he still seemed to scoff as he kept on his walking pace, ignoring his own friend.

Blaise sighed in frustration, “Theodore asked Y/N out!”  Blaise yelled out and Draco stopped dead in his tracks, freezing at the information he just heard. 

Draco abruptly turned around as he quickly made his way around to Blaise, his eyes seemingly red from the fiery attitude, “What?” He questioned with a hint of rage in his tone, “What did she say?” Draco asked curiously as Blaise attempted his best to hide his smirk, knowing damn well that Draco was still very much in love with Y/N.

“Y/N said that she turned him down and she still didn’t feel ready for that sort of thing.” Blaise announced as the pit of nervousness disappeared from Draco’s stomach, relief entering his body quickly, he left out a sigh of breath. 

Draco’s hands ruffled through his platinum hair out of stress, his head turned up in the direction of Blaise, “Uhh.. thanks Blaise, for telling me…” Draco said softly as Blaise nodded in return and just as he was about to leave Draco alone, he opened his mouth once again to speak.

“You should come to the Slytherin party tonight, everyone is going to be there, if you know what I mean…” Blaise announced implying you as Draco nodded understandingly, giving one last nod to Blaise as a thank you as he abruptly left.

Draco had arrived to the party in the hopes of seeing you, knowing what he was doing could very well be putting both of you in danger, but he had too… after what had Blaise said, after the encounter in your dorm…

The realization of losing you forever hit Draco like a wave, he was absolutely desperate to have you back, even though he was hiding it very well.

He had arrived with only the hopes of talking to you, or even catching a glimpse of you would be enough for him.

A huffed sigh escaped his pink lips as he wandered around the party, his eyes searching for you vigorously. 

His hopes and dreams were however shattered in a second as he saw you standing near him.

Theodore Nott. A sudden wash of anger appeared in Draco’s face at the sight, his jaw was visibly clenched, and his hands formed into a fist as you laughed at one of Theodore’s jokes.

Draco was in absolute rage, as you were standing there looking as pretty as ever, and Theodore got to be the one who was making you laugh.

It used to be always him. Him standing next to you, him wrapping his arm around your waist securely, him who made you drunk giggle, him who always made sure you returned to your dorm safely after you became a drunken mess.

But right now it was all washed away as you were standing there with Theodore, because Draco had fucked up big time, and he knew it, but he still couldn’t let you two be all giggly in front of him, especially when he thought he had a chance to better things, even though he knew how selfish that was.

He stormed over to your side as quickly as possible, “Y/N?” He called out your name to what he intended to be soft but it was overwhelmingly harsh as you were startled by his presence and Theodore’s smirk had dropped.

You looked up over at Draco who seemed to be fuming, his eyes were washed away with anger and jealousy, and he threw the worst possible looks he ever could at Theodore.

“Draco?” You questioned confused, your lips were formed into a thin line, trying to look tough to Draco. 

Theodore was also focused on Draco, trying to comprehend what even was happening, but soon enough Draco turned his attention to you, his eyes piercing through yours like a dagger.

“Sorry to interrupt, your little thing.” He mimicked sarcastically as you raised your eyebrows in shock, trying to comprehend why on earth Draco thought he could talk to you.

“I’m sorr-” Your words were interrupted by Draco’s quickly, “Goodbye, Theodore.” Draco announced turning his head over to him before he harshly grabbed your arm dragging you out of the party.

You couldn’t even fully comprehend what was happening in a quick moment as you were now standing outside of the party, with Draco standing in front of you.

“What the fuc-” You were about to almost yell but Draco sshed you quickly but softly. “Look please Y/N, just give me five minutes, five fucking minutes to explain myself.” Draco plead as you huffed quietly, knowing you would still have that soft spot for him that you hated yourself for. 

“Nothing more than five minutes, not even one second more.” You crossed your arms against your chest as your lips formed into a thin line.

“Look Y/N… I.. Fuck.. I am so sorry… for everything… for the pain I put you through, for lying to you, for…” He murmured softly and you looked at him still a bit confused, waiting for him to continue.

“For lying to you about… telling you that I don’t love you, I-” He stuttered as your eyes widened at his confession.

“What?” You asked confused, wanting to know more as Draco’s head popped down ashamed, “What the fuck does that mean, Draco?” You questioned once again as a sigh escaped his lips.

“I.. I of course love you Y/N… How could I not? You’re the most amazing person I have ever met… the prettiest, smartest, kindest, not to mention the funniest…” Draco blabbered softly.

“The things… god the things I felt for you were unbelieveably real, so fucking real that the love I had for you scared me more than anything… You were like this fragile little thing that I ruined… I.. I’m so sorry…” He continued softly, but his voice was cracking now.

Your breath was caught in your throat at his words, realizing that Draco had lied to you about not loving you or breaking up with you for another reason, your heart beat was quickened, but firstly your anger took over without meaning to.

“What the fuck?” You growled loudly as Draco’s attention shifted to you.

“So I have been absolutely tearing myself apart for all these weeks for nothing?” You questioned angrily as Draco opened his mouth to speak but you weren’t going to let him talk. 

 “I have been crying and feeling like absolute shit and not enough for you because you decided to lie? Break up with me over nothing? What the fuck, Draco? Why the fuck would you do that?” You questioned further more angrily, but you could feel the tears forming in your eyes as your voice raised louder.

“No.. Y/N I did it because…” Draco stammered trying to defend himself, “You did it why exactly?” You insisted in rage.

“Because…” Draco murmured again as his head dropped down to the floor in shame, as you just watched his movement carefully, still confused.

His hand went over to his arm, slowly rolling his sleeve shakily, to reveal his dark mark. 

A shocked gasp escaped your lips quickly as you immediately went closer to his side, feeling your lips tremble, as he was visibly uncomfortable.

“Draco…” His name left your mouth so concerned that he still didn’t have the courage to look up at you. “I.. I know… I didn’t… I didn’t want this, Y/N…” his whole demeanor was changed now as a scared, helpless Draco stood in front of you, and you could almost feel or hear your heart shatter. 

“I.. I know you are going to hate me more, now… But I just, I wanted to distance myself from you, I wanted to make you hate me, because… I… I was scared something was going to happen to you…” His lips quivered softly as the words left his mouth, the pain he was feeling was so apparent to you that you could feel his words tug at your heart strings.

“Draco… I… I had no idea…” You murmured softly as Draco now finally looked up at you, he looked absolutely broken, his eyes were bloodshot, his posture was slouched, he looked like a mess.

Your eyes slowly bore into his, glimmering at the sight of him. “I… I could never hate you…” The words left your mouth slowly as Draco’s demeanor softened at your simple words. 

“I… Shit, Draco, If I knew, I could… I could do my best to try and help you and be there…” But your words were interrupted by Draco’s. 

“Y/N… It’s not your fault, it’s me… I fucked up everything…” Draco murmured as your eyes concernedly watches his movements.

 “I ruined our relationship, just like I ruin everything!” Draco’s voice was higher in volume now as he frustratingly and angrily run his hands through his hair. 

You immediately got closer to him as an attempt to calm him down, your arms wrapped around his back securely as an immediate response and Draco froze for a moment. 

You could feel his stiff posture slowly soften as the tighter you hugged him, almost as if your touch had melted him, and just about a few seconds after, Draco’s arms immediately hugged around your waist, he nuzzled his head deep into your neck, a sigh of relief escaped his lips.

“I’m so sorry for everything… everything I put you through… every stupid thing I did… I don’t deserve you… I… You’re perfect… I love you… and I am just a stupid fuck up…” Draco murmured into your shoulder as he finally let go of the tears he had been holding onto.

A gut-wrenching sob escaped his lungs as your heart ached, you hugged him tighter to comfort him as he cried out in your shoulders, “Don’t say that, Draco…” You assured him quickly. 

Your hands immediately found their way to his face as you leveled his head to meet yours, your hands were holding his face softly, “I love you, Draco… and I will always stand by you, if you will let me…” You reassured him delicately as Draco’s eyes softened.

“I… I’m so sorry…” He apologized again, pleading as you shook your head softly, “Just… please… please don’t lie to me and hide things from me… it absolutely shatters me to see you like this, Draco…” You spoke in a slow tone as Draco just watched you slowly.

“We’re going to get through this together, please Draco, let me be by your side, don’t push me away…” You pleaded as Draco’s firm lips seemed to ease into a little bit of a smile. 

“I love you, Y/N…” Draco murmured softly. “I will never ever keep anything from you ever again, or ever try to push you away…” Draco continued softly now reassuring you as a smile played onto your lips.

You pulled his face closer to yours as you gave him a soft but passionate quick kiss on his lips, feeling his lips quirk up into a smile as you did so. 

“Together?” Draco asked you as his eyes bored into yours lovingly, you nodded quickly, “Together.” The words left your mouth easily as Draco gave you a warm smile again.

The two of you walked to your dorms slowly, wanting to spend the lost time now together, the thought of Draco being a death eater of course was boggling with your mind as you knew this wouldn’t be something easy nor something simple to overcome, but you also deep down knew that, as long as you were together, everything would be just fine.

taglist: @beiahadid @dracosathenaeum @mischiefisbeingmanaged @minsuuwu @drxcomvlfx @abb-lan-5sos @azkabanlexi  

[honestlyfrance]

to bleed on paper is to create

ship: sam/bucky

warning: angst, hurt/comfort

summary:

“What does this mean…” Sam whispered, setting his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder.

“We could…” Bucky trailed off, then he became silent, “What do you want?”

or

Sam, an amateur artist, and Bucky, an international nude model, blur the lines of work, ending up being unprofessional to the point that they'd need to end it.

—■—■—

The way the sunlight streamed in through the musty French windows was of grandeur and an absolute aesthetic to the abandoned atmosphere, whisking the abandoned ballroom into another century too old for tales, yet it felt like home: like we belong. It’s here that the room looked like a filtered nude brown as jagged columns high as the sky reached the half-finished mural on the ceiling, raggedy pale nude curtains decorated itself with holes drawn aside to let the sunlight dance on the marble tiles like mosaics on a Cathedral; this architectural beauty wasn’t done yet — construction beams and debris nets design the far end of the unfinished floor plan, and there’s much to do to make this room the final product.

In the empty expanse of the ballroom was one lone creaky bed, the clean cream sheets shoved to the side and the bed frame rusted with golden paint. Two figures were lazing on the bed, one half-naked and one fully clothed, too close together to call it anything but intimate. Their atoms buzzed together, seemingly forever and nowhere at the same time, as if they finally felt at peace with each other’s existence, almost as if they wanted nothing more than to lay in each other’s arms, feeling the other finally breathe so freely it should’ve been a sin to be so lax and human as if lovely and heavenly all the same, they’ve reinvented the very definition of such thing as if they’re the very essence of it.

Bucky Barnes was resting on his elbow, his bare chest free for the eyes as the lower part of his body was wrapped with the thin sheets that came with the raggedy bed. His breathing was relaxed and free, and he couldn't help but inhale the scent of the entire atmosphere; paint buckets lining the window sills and rose pots displayed at the double doors of the ballroom, mixing in together so beautifully it had a personality of its own. His fingers were lightly pulling at the sheet, feeling the softness like a desperate lover, you couldn’t help but take note of the adoration written in his eyes, and if he could, he would take that adoration to the stars, because right in front of him was Sam Wilson, in a criss-cross position as he sketched away on his sketchpad, his tongue gracing his lip slightly in concentration, and Bucky wanted nothing more than to place the pad of his thumb on the man’s mouth and to tell him to shut up and let me love you right here, right now. 

Bucky’s eyes were glinting with genuine idolization, wanting nothing more but to throw away his beliefs to make Sam the leader of it all, or instead, wanting to serve the man before him, to save the man right beside him, and to unconditionally love the man like no god has ever thought of before. His heart was pounding in his throat, making it dry and him unable to voice every little enthusiastic poetic claim he wants to tell Sam. Does Sam know how much Bucky’s lungs grow blue from depriving himself of air just so Sam could breathe freely? Does Sam know how much love pounded in Bucky’s chest that he just wanted to rip his stomach wide open to let it pounce right out of him? Does Sam know how much thrill Bucky gets from his sight alone that he couldn’t help but want to drown himself to slow down the pace of adrenaline in his veins? Will Sam ever know how much Bucky painfully starves himself of this love because he never wanted to be full of it, always afraid that if he took it all with open arms he’d never have this ecstasy ever again?

He fights the urge to grace his knuckles against Sam’s cheekbone, being delicately layered with the golden sun rays the sunset outside had blessed them with. Bucky fights the want to lean into Sam’s space and lay down beside him, embracing Sam with all of his body and never letting go, afraid that he’d miss him the next time they escape each other’s grasps. Bucky wanted to plant himself like a tree and scream at the fate the stars had set out for him, begging the universe to let him rest with the man he had found to love because it’s too much — God, it’s too deadly, it sickens, it pains Bucky to even love Sam because it’s too intense to hide it. Bucky needed to yell out Sam Wilson’s name to the suns and beg Icarus to rise once more to grace Sam with wings made of wax, forever intact in legend and forever an angel of the stars. There’s nothing more desperate than to want this badly, and Bucky’s too greedy to share the man with anyone else, always wanting Sam to stay and never loosen his grasp— Please. Just hold me close and never look back, Sam, please. Love me as I do you and never know of heartache. It’s below us to digress.

Bucky’s too tired to voice it, but he wants to bury himself in the ground just because Sam had smiled at him, always feeling the need to appear small to make up for being… himself. It’s not insecurity, it’s the idea of knowing you would only suffice; just being enough. Have you met Sam, you’d know that the man is full of service, and it wouldn’t take too long to learn to love him to the brink of exhaustion, and in the end, you wouldn’t think your love would be enough to satiate a man such as him, deserving of every last drop of love anyone could ever offer. You’d have the sudden urge to brace yourself for the god-like abilities the man has, and his smile alone is one of them. 

Sam, on the other hand, didn’t think so, always burying himself six-feet below whenever anyone gave him a slice of heaven, because maybe it was too much, needed to make up every amateur thing he did by making sure no one saw him as a professional. It’s not healthy, and it’s not what he knew was right, but it did; it felt right to dwindle into nothingness and blend into the wallpaper because maybe it was easier, maybe he was tired of the attention towards him, needed to forget himself to truly feel like himself again.  

All Sam wanted was Bucky to stop staring at him as if every constellation known to man was in his eyes, knowing full well that Bucky was an astronomer and would want nothing more but to drown in his irises Bucky had claimed to “have the fates of every person written in the stars” as if Sam would believe such folly. Sam wanted nothing more but to bury this immense feeling of warmth that grows in his chest every time Bucky moved as if a danseur dancing to the melody that is his heartbeats as if dedicating his every move to the sun and the stars, wanting nothing more to make art in the form of love if such dedication existed in the first place. Yet, it did — Sam just didn’t want to believe it. 

Sam stared intently on his sketchpad for so long that his neck began to strain at the weight of it, his hand diligently making careful light strokes with his charcoal. Sam could feel Bucky’s eyes on his clothed body, and he wanted nothing more but to run away because— “it’s too much, don’t you dare see me so vulnerable to you! Don’t ever let me fall for you,” Sam wanted to say, but with Bucky’s eyes and playful smile, Sam would begin to judge himself, because why must I run away from a man who made me know he wouldn’t let me down? “I care about him,” Bucky said to himself, and he made sure of it that night when he held Sam that close, under the stars peeking through the windows, and under the same mural above them. It was an intimate getup, with the way Sam had clutched onto Bucky’s coat in the cold, Bucky rubbing Sam’s back in careful circles, and that could’ve been the time when they admitted they loved the other — forever buried in secret, because they were professionals, goddamnit. They shouldn’t be this close, and it hurts just to think of it.

Sam shook his head, stifling down a laugh; his smile alone, Bucky thinks, could challenge suns on its own. “Can’t believe you stripped down,” he said, and Bucky, right on cue, raised his arms to stretch his bare torso, a smirk on his face as Sam continued with an eye roll, “It’s way past our session, Barnes,”

read more on AO3

[dokidokey]

when you drag sakusa out to a very early morning / very late night meteor shower watching, he thinks how it would end up if he confessed the feelings he’s been harboring for a long time now.

pairings: sakusa kiyoomi x reader

prompt: “you woke me up at 3 am for this?”

genre: fluff

warnings: platonic relationship, pining

word count: 1,700

notes: my 2nd hqhq server collab yay! THIS is the masterlist consisting of other writers who participated, check it out!

Apart from Sakusa’s love for cleaning products, especially green apple-flavored sanitizers, he also loves his sleep. He cherishes it as much as he does his hand sanitizers. So when he hears his phone ring in the middle of the night, he’s already thinking about how he’s going to make you pay for disturbing his sleep.

You aren’t calling though. It’s an alarm he knows he never set up. 2:50 AM glares right back at him from his phone screen, and much to his dismay, he hears his bedroom door open and in walks you, in all your grinning glory.

“Hi!” You greet him, giving a little wave of your hand before you tuck it back behind you. “So. . . you’re awake.”

“You think?”

A sheepish smile graces your face as you rock back and forth on your heels. Sakusa trusts you enough to let you inside his room, being that you’re his roommate and, dare he say it, best friend. He takes it as an achievement that his cleanliness rubbed off on you. Whenever Bokuto or anyone from his team would come over, he didn’t have to stress himself over how much of their germs would get transferred inside his  things and yours because you do it for him. Sometimes he thinks you’re more extreme than he ever was.

“I told you I was going to wake you up but you didn’t say anything? So I just set up an alarm for you, just in case,” you shrug nonchalantly. Then you add, “besides, I don’t do this often so don’t give me that look.”

“What look?” he asks, pushing his comforter off him and sliding on his slippers.

“That look!” You accuse, pointing a finger at his face. You follow Sakusa as he makes his way to his bathroom, leaning on the doorway and watching him as he opens the faucet. “Like you’re so bored.”

Kiyoomi meets your gaze on your reflection in the mirror. “Maybe I am.”

You groan, crossing your arms and frowning at him. Sakusa ducks his head down as he gathers a handful of water on his palms and splashes it onto his face. Honestly speaking, he really doesn’t mind that you woke him up at this hour. Bokuto has long bled his ears off about his obvious crush on you and it came off as a surprise to Sakusa that it was Bokuto that noticed first. The rest of MSBY knew it some time after when they overheard Bo blackmailing him to attend one of their parties.

The only person that still doesn’t know is you.

And he prefers it this way. This way, where he doesn’t have to tiptoe around you. You’ve been friends for a long, long time now and Kiyoomi knows you like the back of his hand. He can tell anyone that asks that he knows how you use your handkerchiefs in a color-coordinated way － starting from red to black, like a rainbow of some sorts. Kiyoomi knows that you wake up at 6:15 in the morning. That is after you snooze your other alarms that have a 5-minute interval.

He’s fine like this, with you frowning at him from the doorway of his bathroom at this ungodly hour in the morning rather than getting rejected. Because if you liked him back, you would pay attention to him, right? You’d notice things the way he notices things about you. You’d see him in another light than everybody else. You’d be hyperaware because that’s how Kiyoomi is with you.

But you aren’t, so he turns around and reaches over to grab his face towel to dry his skin. “What do you want, anyway?”

“You really weren’t paying attention to me!” You cry, throwing your hands in the air as you step away and plops yourself on his bed, facedown.

Now that he thinks about it, Sakusa has no recollection of you telling him about waking up this early, so it must have been one of those rare instances he was preoccupied with something else. “So?” He prods as he steps out of the bathroom and grabs his phone, “what?”

“I’m not telling you,” you shout but it’s muffled against the covers of the bed. You stand up, grab his wrist, and push his door open. He says nothing as you lead him out of your shared apartment and inside the elevator, pushing the button to the highest floor. Once you reach the top, you both trudge up the metal stairs that leads to the rooftop.

The air is biting as it touches Kiyoomi’s skin, sweeping his hair back like a black veil. The city below is alive with the constant honks of the cars and the lights that almost rival the stars, giving the horizon a yellow haze.

“What are we doing here?” He asks, walking closer to the edge but not touching the railing.

“We wait,” he hears you reply.

“So you woke me up at 3 AM for this?” Sakusa is confused. “For real?”

You hum enthusiastically, head bobbing up and down as you smile at him. Your eyes form crescents, contrasting the real one that’s hanging quite full above. You turn away from him, giving him the chance to study your side profile. You really are beautiful. A light chuckle escapes his lips when he notices the slight bump on the bridge of your nose. Sakusa has woken up to countless mornings of you complaining about how much you don’t like it.

“It’s cold out here,” he mumbles, pocketing his hands to keep them warm. He wonders how you can stand the cold breeze in a tank top, a part of your chest and your arms exposed.

You huff and roll your eyes, scrunching your nose. “I know but who cares?”

“I do.”

You huff again, crossing your arms and leaning slightly on him. Sakusa is aware of the way your hair bites against his skin, of the feel of your arms against his. It feels warm, enough so that a shiver crawls up his spine.

“Oh, there they are!”

His thoughts are disrupted with a pointed finger aimed at the sky. He squints as he looks to where you’re pointing and there it goes, streaks of white painting the darkness. He watches as they fall collectively, highly aware of your grip on his arms now. An arm is wrapped around his bicep, both palms laid flat on his skin. It burns and it hurts to have you close like this, dangling at the very ends of his fingertips without any chance of having you fully.

Your giddiness is adorable though. You’re practically bouncing on the tips of your toes, eyes wide and alert for more coming comets as they rain down the atmosphere. A small squeak of surprise and wonder alike would fall from your lips every time, and comes with it is the gentle feeling of your grip on him getting a little tighter.

“Oh, that one’s so bright, Omi!” You gasp. Sakusa follows your finger to a bright falling meteor, streaking the sky brightly. You both watch as it falls and gradually gets swallowed by the dark.

“Do you know Halley’s comet?” You inquire suddenly. Your eyes are the brightest of all the lights and stars tonight as you look at him with a pout. “Do you?” You softly prod.

Kiyoomi shakes his head with a hum. He lied. He does know what it was. How could he forget when it was the very first topic you talked to him about when you got partnered for a science project way back in high school.

“It’s like the most famous comet of all, how can you not know?” You look at him dramatically, face scrunched up. “It shows up around every. . . sixty eight. . . ? No, around seventy five years, I think. God, I’d be so damn old. I don’t even know if I’ll live long enough to see that,” you exasperate. Kiyoomi barely absorbs the words you’re enthusiastically discussing. He knows he should be paying attention to your words but how can he when you’re right there? You’re distracting enough and the fact that you’re now latched onto his arm is making his head spin.

You sigh as you put a foot forward, toeing the concrete. “People who can see it twice are so lucky. Yeah, sure, I’d see it but I’m so old then? I don’t even know if my eyes can still see clearly when that happens.”

Sakusa flicks your forehead. “You talk like you aren’t always squinting today,” he says. “I told you many times to get your eye checked.”

“My eyes are totally fine!”

“You can’t even read the text on the menu last week! I don’t even know how you saw those meteors.”

A pinch is delivered to the skin above Sakusa’s wrist and he flinches. He pinches you right back and contemplates the thoughts that are running through his head right this moment. Tonight is a great opportunity to confess his feelings or ruin your friendship. If it goes well, then good for him. If it doesn’t, at least it ended quite decently. Right?

His mouth is moving before he fully processes the words he’s saying.

“I could wait for that comet with you,” he says and he almost throws up. It sounded so disgusting and cheesy and so unlike him that he is sure Atsumu would never let him live that down if he heard.

“Omi.” You choke out a laugh, patting the back of his hand, “Atsumu is never going to let you live that down.

Sakusa groans internally, his jaw clenching as his stance goes rigid. Is that your way of rejecting him?

“But sure,” you muse and his heart rate picks up, “I just hope you won’t drop me when I’m old and wrinkly.”

And there goes his unplanned attempt at confession that went by way smoother than he expected, excluding the fact that he lowkey got rejected. It’s pretty evident you don’t return his feelings. He’s more stressed now about how he will break this news to Bokuto tomorrow at practice.

“As long as you’re clean,” Kiyoomi replies, “I think we’ll go a long way.”

[thedevilsmemes]

      PINTEREST QUOTES I USE IN MY MUSINGS BOARDS                         ~ A SENTENCE MEME - PART 2

                         Change pronouns as / when needed to preferred pronoun.

“I do not do justice, I do damage. I do not do empathy, I do damage. I do not do forgiveness, I do damage. I do not do mercy, I do damage.”

“Like, you can boss me around in sexual situations but you better not try to tell me what to do in regular life.”

“I’m fine, I’ve had worse.”

“I’m meaner than my demons.”

“If I cannot bend Heaven, I will raise Hell.”

“Well, aren’t you a little ray of pitch black?”

“He was like a storm.”

“You want to play dirty? Fine, let’s play dirty!”

{ feels an emotion. } “Who the fuck authorised this?!”

“What the fuck? What the fuck is this? What the fuck?”

“Judge if you want. We are all going to die. I intend to deserve it.”

“Goddamn right you should be scared of me.”

“They wanted a monster; I decided to give them one.”

“Seduce and destroy.”

“What the fuck is intimacy? How does that work? Letting… people be close to you? What the fuck?”

“You couldn’t kill me if you tried for one hundred years.”

“I’ll do this my way.”

“I am severely emotionally unstable.”

“What, from the bottom of the heart, the fuck?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t take any orders. I barely take suggestions.”

“I send my best regards from Hell.”

“I like my coffee how I like myself: Dark, bitter and too hot for you.”

“Me and God, we don’t get along.”

“Be brave, Angel.”

“Self care is drinking three pots of coffee and getting into a knife fight with God.”

{ takes gulp of vodka straight from the bottle } “My day was fine.”

“Have I stabbed you? No. Then I am being nice.”

“Holy Shit! I’M the demon living in my house.”

“Sir, that’s my emotional support knife collection.”

“I want an ancient elaborate dagger with my name engraved into the blade as a gift. The only romantic gesture.”

“ ‘Are you a top or a bottom?’ I'm a threat!”

“Stop being so defensive! I’m just trying to hit you with weapons.”

“The more knives you have the more valid you are.”

“She’s strong but she’s exhausted.”

“She loves moonlight and rainstorms and so many other things that have soul.”

“My darling, you can’t see it can you? How like the moon you are. Both of you so timid in yourselves; hiding pieces from the world. Then, there are those rare moments when you are both full, and it becomes hard to look away. You are beautiful.”

“Calm her chaos but never silence her storm.”

“She wears strength and darkness equally well. That girl has always been half Goddess, half Hell.”

“She has been through Hell, so believe me when I say, fear her when she looks into the fire and smiles.”

“She’s proof that you can walk through Hell and still be an angel.”

“She is both hellfire and holy water. And the flavour you taste depends on how you treat her.”

“Even the mountains can not hold all you have been carrying.”

“Storm with skin.”

“She’s thunderstorms”

“Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.”

“You have a heart of gold.”

“Butterflies are the Heaven-sent kisses of an angel.”

“She who is brave is free.”

“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”

“Shut up. I wear heels bigger than your dick.”

“Girls who run in heels should be feared.”

“Family is everything to me.”

“She’s an old soul that believes in chivalry, romance, and love.”

“I hate getting flashbacks from things I don’t want to remember.”

“I run on coffee and grace.”

“I’m glad I’ve got boobs… the last thing I need is people making eye contact with me.”

“Tell me to put on my big girl panties one more time… and I’ll take off my thong and strangle you with it!”

“Please read all my posts in a sarcastic tone. You know, for full effect.”

“I have one nerve left and you’re dry-humping it, go away.”

“If I offend you, cry me a river. I’ll bring snacks and a raft. I will literally float down your tears, eating chips and working on my tan.”

“When she is happy, she can’t stop talking. When she is sad, she doesn’t say a word.”

“Music becomes my best friend when nobody else understands me.”

“Act like a lady, think like a boss.”

“I know I have friends but I feel I have no one to talk to about the shit that goes on in my head.”

“She was special. She combined a mean angel and a kind devil.”

“So much pain for someone so young.”

“She’s one of a kind.”

“Red lips and wine sips.”

“Brave girl, it’s time to love again.”

“She is intelligent.”

“Sometimes, when I say ‘I’m okay.’ I want someone to look me in the eyes, hug me tight, and say, ‘I know you’re not.’ ”

“Because I’m not the kind of girl guys fall in love with.”

“I fear I will spend my life, waiting for a love story that doesn’t exist.”

“You’re a woman, use it; bring every man you meet to his motherfucking knees.”

“She denies it but, the truth is, she’s falling in love with him.”

“Hearing your heels click on the floor sounds like power.”

“She loves deeply, regardless of the love she gets back in return and it’s both her biggest strength and biggest weakness…”

“Experience raised her. Hurt taught her. Neither defined her.”

“She was not fragile like a flower was, she was fragile like a bomb.”

“Life is short; make every hair flip count.”

“I’ve always been someone who looks ‘too deep’ into something or someone. That’s because I realised from a young age that there’s always more than what meets the eye.”

“If I say ‘first of all’ Run away because I have prepared research, data, charts, and will destroy you.”

“Underestimate me, that’ll be fun.”

“You think I’m sarcastic? You should hear what I don’t say!”

“She’s a combination of sensitive and savage.”

“Stay classy, sassy and a bit bad assy.”

“She’s battling things her smile will never tell you about.”

 “Ain't you ever seen a princess be a bad bitch?”

“I was told I was dangerous… I asked why? They said ‘because you don’t need anyone.’ That’s when I smiled.”

“She’s been through hell and came out an angel. You didn’t break her darling, you don’t own that kind of power.”

“Watch me. I will go to my own sun and, if I am burned by the flames, I will fly on scorched wings.”

“Her messy hair is a visible attribute to her stubborn spirit. As she shakes it free, she smiles, knowing wild is her favourite colour.”

“She’s strong. But in the back of her mind she doesn’t think that she was meant to be this strong for this long. And she wonders if there is a man out there, somewhere, who understands this.”

“She’s not for everyone and she knows it. People find her different and strange. She dances in the rain, she laughs when she cries and loves through her pain. People fear the unknown and they never knew a girl like her.”

“Don’t tell a girl with fire in her veins and hurricane bones what she should and shouldn’t do. In the blink of an eye, she will shatter that ridiculous cage you attempt to build around her beautiful bohemian spirit.”

“You provoke her until she roars and then get upset at her for becoming the monster you created.”

“Rip out his ego with your fresh nails.”

“She isn’t the sunrise; she’s the fucking sun.”

“You can’t touch a woman who can wear pain like the grandest of diamonds around her neck.”

“Watch your tongue around her. She will bear her fangs and tear you apart with all the grace of a Queen.” 

“If you won’t embrace her madness, then you’ll never taste her magic.”

“Beauty may be dangerous but intelligence is lethal.”

“She is water. Powerful enough to drown you, soft enough to cleanse you, deep enough to save you.”

“Heavy is the crown and yet she wears it as if it were a feather. There is strength in her heart, determination in her eyes and the will to survive resides within her soul.”

“I wish that I could say that I am a light that never goes out, but I flicker from time to time.”

“Spoil me with loyalty. I can finance myself.”

“Shoutout to all the people with brown hair and brown eyes! We basic as fuck but we cute!”

“I feel a nap coming on.”

“Is horny an emotion?”

“I just really like thigh-highs.”

“Even though she looks innocent, she is really a perverted demon.”

“She didn’t sob or wail. Her pain was horribly discreet but as persistent and almost as silent as bleeding from an unstitched wound.”

“I don’t rise from the ashes, I make them. I’m the whole fucking fire.”

“Beautiful but destructive.”

“I’m aiming for the ‘she’s a badass and cute as hell but I wouldn’t touch her without asking’ look.”

“Loving me must be so fucking hard and I’m so sorry.”

“Some women are lost in the fire. Some women are built from it.”

“You glow differently when you’re actually happy.”

“She’s magic, that one.”

“Kicked out of Hell.”

“Red hair: the crown you never take off.”

“You’ve got a fire inside.”

“She doesn’t need a warrior, she is one. What she needs is a devout heart, and strong arms to hold her after her battles are won.”

“You are the love that came without warning: You had my heart before I could say no.”

“You want battle? I’ll give you war.”

“True evil is, above all things, seductive.”

“The Devil’s got nothing on me, my friend.”

“Haven’t I fallen far enough?”

“I’m not like them, but I can pretend.”

“I don’t like being told what to do.”

“Now I grow wings and rage, and learn how to kill.”

“Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.”

“Though she be little, she be fierce.”

“I know what this is; It’s just myself, talking to myself, about myself.”

“You underestimate my power.”

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (28) || atz

“So… can I just say this sounds like a terrible plan?” Wooyoung asks as he glances at his captain, suiting up in his mission clothes once more. Hongjoong throws him a dirty look.

“Well, I’d like to see you come up with a better plan.” Captain snaps, but there’s no hostility in his tone. Instead, he sounds almost as nervous as you and Wooyoung are, turning to Seonghwa urgently. “Do you really want to do this, Seonghwa?”

The cook is dressed in mission attire as well, looking more out of place than you do in a black shirt and pants, a matching scarf hanging around his neck. When his captain addresses him, he nods, his fingers drumming furiously at his thighs, deep in thought.

He’s finally going to confront his parents’ murderer.

As the ones who know the town better than anyone else on board (except Seonghwa), you and Wooyoung will be accompanying Seonghwa on this little mission, assisting him by leading him to Lucio Bartholomew. The plan once you reach town is simple, trace the same way you took the last time and get to Lucio’s room, somehow dodging every guard along the way.

But nerves edge at you.

“What if they increase the guard because of us the last time?” You ask a little nervously, turning to Yeosang. The navigator shrugs as he helps you secure the grappling rope around your waist.

“Fight them off and run like hell. We’ve got a surplus of smoke bombs and interesting surprises this time, so Wooyoung will use them if need be.”

You turn to the head gunner in surprise. It’s the first time you’ve seen him so heavily armed, pistols and muskets dangling from his body. There’s even a double barreled shotgun hanging from his back, the menacing weapon looks like it could do some pretty serious damage.

From his shoulder dangles a bag full of the several ‘fun’ surprises that Yeosang had been working on, packed to the brim.

“I hope it won’t come to that.” You mumble under your breath, but Wooyoung simply chuckles, waving it off with a grin that you’ve missed so much.

“Aww, where’s the fun in that?” He laughs and you give him a flat look, completely unamused.

“Not getting shot in the foot would be a good start.”

There’s a knock on the door of the cabin, and it opens a crack to let Mingi’s head pop in to look at the five of you inside. “The moon’s hidden behind the clouds.” He tells you, face grim.

You exchange glances with each other and begin to rise to your feet. Time for you to go, you suppose.

All of you step outside onto the main deck, your soft soled boots barely making any noise against the wooden floorboards. Another invention you had to credit to Yeosang, who had stayed up all night trying to find ways to ensure the three of you wouldn’t be caught up in another terrible situation.

There’s a wooden rowing boat hanging over the port side of the ship, ready to be lowered into the water. The sea beneath you is calm, like a floor of glass, tiny ripples disrupting its otherwise smooth surface. You can see the town less than a mile away, the island of Nassau emitting a soft glow into the night.

“Well then, let’s be off.” Wooyoung stretches as he gets ready to board the boat. You get in after him, the little rowing boat rocking dangerously under your feet and you nearly fall right over the side. Wooyoung barely manages to catch you by the arm, pulling you back into the boat. “Wouldn’t want you to be taking a swim so soon.”

You want to smack the grin off his face.

Seonghwa steps into the boat with a lot more grace than you had, sitting down in front of you. Mingi and Hongjoong stand at the bulwarks, eyes reflecting the light of the torches like mirrors.

“Good luck.” Hongjoong says, and then Jongho and Yunho both grab a rope each, helping to lower the boat into the water. Nausea wells up in you and groan, this is a terrible start to the mission. Seonghwa and Wooyoung both pick up their oars, and once the boat is floating on the surface of the sea, they begin to paddle for shore.

The journey is more or less silent, aside from the splashing of water from the oars. The night is still, and after half an hour or so of hard paddling, the boat runs aground onto dry sand.

The three of you leap out of the boat, quickly hiding it in a thick clump of ferns in case anyone decides to wander along. Wooyoung claps you on the shoulder cheerily as the three of you make your way through the small grove of trees you had passed through the last time, Wooyoung this time carefully making sure to glance around at his surroundings so as to avoid another head/branch breaking incident.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” He asks you with a smile and you snort, batting his hand away.

“Yeah… As if I could forget how you stupidly walked into a branch.”

Wooyoung sniffs delicately, assuming the pompous air of a rich, noble lady. “I have done no such thing.” You fight to keep the snort from escaping you.

Seonghwa trails behind the two of you in silence and both of you exchange subtle looks. Wooyoung raises an eyebrow at you.

Should we talk to him?

You frown at him, jerking your head slightly at the man behind you.

Shouldn’t you know? You’ve been his friend for longer.

Wooyoung puffs out his cheeks.

Yeah, but I’m not exactly the most sensitive person, you know?

“Seonghwa-hyung?” You turn around to look at the cook, who’s momentarily jerked out of his little reverie as he looks at you. There’s a concerned look on your face. “Are you alright?”

The taller man manages to give you a weak smile even as he shakes his head truthfully. “I really just want to meet this man and ask him why he chose to do this to my parents… Honestly, I wish I were angry with him… but all I feel right now is confusion, and I don’t know why.”

You and Wooyoung glance at each other.

“You must be just like Yeosangie.” Wooyoung shakes his head as if in disappointment, but there’s a wistful smile on his face. “Both of you are too pure for this world, seriously.”

“I...” Seonghwa interjects softly and the two of you listen intently. “I lived my whole life with the dream of returning to Nassau and taking revenge on the man who took my family from me. I thought it’d bring me the peace I needed so much. But now that it’s right in front of my eyes, I can’t help but feel like I need to know why my parents were killed, more than taking revenge.”

He smiles weakly at the two of you.

“Sorry. I’m not being very eloquent, am I?”

“No problem, that’s Yeosang and Hongjoong-hyung’s job.”The gunner waves his apology away as the three of you approach the treeline. You step forward to scope out the place, pulling the scarf over your nose as you check for any guards or the like. “I think I can understand. We’ll respect your decisions, Seonghwa-hyung.”

You turn back to them. “All clear. But we should stay wary, they might still on high alert. It’s only been a week, after all.”

Quietly, the three of you slip out of the shadows and into the town.

This time, the tension in the air is so high no one dares make a sound. Even though the last time you and Wooyoung were simply joking around to ease your nerves, it’s different now. This may be Seonghwa’s last shot at getting to this Lucio Bartholomew.

You cross your fingers and pray that the gods will find favour with you tonight. Then you feel something warm drip from your nose and you frown, riffling about in your bag for a cloth.

Ever since you’d saved Yeosang from certain death, you had started to get nosebleeds a little more frequently, something that confused both you and San. Your master had told you that he’d never seen such a strange after effect of a healing like this, but then again he had never seen a healing of such a high scale before. Worried, he’d started to track how often you got nosebleeds, but you were sure it was just exhaustion from the healing you had done.

After a while, the bleeding stops, and you shove the cloth back into your bag.

You take the same path as you did a week before, walking past the row of shop houses and ducking into the alleyway behind the bookshop, into the cover of the shadows. This time, Wooyoung listens for guards while you undo the grappling rope around your waist, waiting for your partner’s signal. When he does nod at you, you twirl the hook above your head and toss it into the window as quietly as possible.

The iron hook flies into the window and you tug on it to make sure it’s secure. Wooyoung brushes past you, pulling his scarf over his mouth to hide his face and a black hood to hide his hair. Gripping the rope tight, he scales it quickly, climbing into the room.

There are two jerks on the rope.

Safe.

You climb up the rope after him, proud that you’re able to do this a lot faster than before. When you’re in the room, you help Seonghwa up after, and he joins the three of you in Ludovico Robertt’s room for the first time.

Except Ludovico Robertt is not in his bed.

You frown, glancing around a little apprehensively. “Where’s our dear Ludo?”

“Officials tend to work overtime a lot, don’t worry.” Wooyoung tells you as he secures the rope around his waist. This time, all of you take precaution, drawing loaded muskets from your belts just in case of something unexpected happening. Your other hand rests nervously on the hilt of your cutlass.

Wooyoung opens the door and studies the corridor outside.

The he turns back to you and shakes his head.

No one.

Something rolls about in the pit of your stomach, like a restless sea.

“Wooyoung, I think we should-” You begin to say, but he’s already slipped out of the door, Seonghwa following close behind. You don’t have any choice but to follow the two of them, nervously looking around for any signs of danger.

There are none.

And that scares you more than anything else.

The courtyard is void of guards, the torches flickering in the brackets along the walls show no one is patrolling the corridor. You can feel unease bubbling deep in you.

“Let’s go.” Wooyoung gestures to you and Seonghwa, the three of you make your way across the corridor to Lucio Bartholomew’s room. A cicada chirps and you nearly jump out of your skin, heart racing a million knots an hour as you fight to keep your breathing steady. The gunner fiddles with the latch, opening the door to reveal a dark room behind it, which you slip inside.

Wooyoung closes the door carefully after you as you take the time to adjust to the gloom of the room. When you can finally see more clearly once more, you glance around to scope the room out.

The room is exactly as the last time you had been here. Piles of official work documents are stacked upon the desk, books still well kept on the shelves. Nothing would have suggested that just a week ago, the two of you had been here to cause such a ruckus. But unease weighs on your mind. It’s too quiet, too calm, too still. The lack of guards, the empty room of Ludovico Robertt and the seemingly too easy entrance all seem to be pointing you towards something. By the time you realise it, you’re too late. The door opens behind you and the three of you whirl around in horror to a see the outline of a man standing there. His face is hidden in shadow, but you can see the smile on his face. Seonghwa gasps beside you, eyes going wide. His face drains of colour as he stares down the man opposite him, hands trembling with fear or anger, you don’t know. “I’ve been waiting for you, Park Seonghwa.”

The Treasure’s resident cook looks as if there is a musket pointed straight at him, even though the man’s hands are empty. Wooyoung jerks his gun at who you’re presuming to be Lucio Bartholomew.

“Hands in the air.”

The man complies without resistance, raising his hands. His lack of fear, his complete absence of surprise, all of it is disconcerting. Part of you wishes he would fight back, would call for the guards like he did before, but he does none of those things. Instead, he merely looks at you gently with a smile worn and weathered with time, crow’s feet crinkling at the corner of his eyes.

Seonghwa is staring at the man intently, eyes narrowed in deep thought. Then his mouth falls open, his eyes widening in shock. You frown as you study his face in concern, has he remembered how this man killed his parents? But the words that leave his mouth are not something that you were expecting in the least.

“...Uncle Barty?”

You almost choke on your own tongue in shock. Uncle Barty? Uncle? And from the way Seonghwa says his name, with a tinge of familiarity, the two must have been pretty close at least, or had known each other before.

You’re almost terrified by how calm he is, utterly unruffled by Wooyoung’s gun pointed at his head. Is he planning something? Why are there no guards? Why does Seonghwa know him? Even worse, the man simply smiles at Seonghwa’s stupefied expression.

“Hwaseong.” He says, and from the way Seonghwa goes rigid, the word must mean something from his past. You swallow uncomfortably, pointing your own gun at him, trying to hide the way your eyes are darting about nervously for some sort of danger.

“Where are the guards?” You snap, trying to sound as intimidating as possible, but Ludovico Bartholomew simply shakes his head at you with a kind smile that honestly scares you more than Leon Bastiville’s sneer.

“There are no guards.”

You’re struck dumb for a moment. The Treasure had been caught at the harbour the last week and two of their crew had been found at the officials’ building, but no one had bothered to post additional watch there? From the look on Wooyoung’s face, he doesn’t believe a word of it but chooses to remain silent. It seemed to good to be true. And his next words are even more disconcerting.

“I told them to leave. I was expecting you.”

Unease stirs in you. He was expecting you?

“You… You were one of the restaurant’s patrons. One of mother and father’s friends.” Seonghwa manages to choke out, you and Wooyoung exchange concerned looks at this bit of new information. “You were the one who bought Ha Rin cranberry cream buns from the bakery every time you visited the eatery.”

Bartholomew doesn’t try to explain himself, doesn’t beg for forgiveness, doesn’t even try to deny it. Instead, he simply nods.

“I was.”

You’re horrified. This man, the one who brought a young nine year old girl buns and was friends with Seonghwa’s parents actually had the heart to send them to the gallows in cold blood?

“I remember seeing you at the eatery every morning, talking with mother and father.” The words tumble from Seonghwa’s lips as he continues to stare at the man in shock. “And you… and you helped Hyunjung with his studies, you encouraged him to become a good student.”

The man nods once more. “So I was.”

“And you killed them.” Seonghwa’s voice is nothing more than a hushed whisper now, soft grey eyes unblinking as he stares at the man who ruined his entire life in a single day. “You sent them to their deaths.”

Ludovico Bartholomew nods one last time, this time his head drops a little, as if he feels just a tiny bit of guilt.

“I did.”

The official’s reply leaves you stunned. But Seonghwa looks like he’s seen a ghost of his past, which you suppose in some way he has, the pallor of his face draining of all colour.

“I should kill you right now.” He breathes, raising his own gun to Bartholomew’s forehead. His body is trembling from the emotions rushing through him, but his hand is still on the firearm. “My family deserve their revenge.”

Ludovico smiles again, this time a little sadder, a little more wistful. Then he steps forward, right up to Seonghwa, and presses his forehead against the mouth of the barrel. “You should.”

But he can’t.

Seonghwa’s hands start to tremble violently, as if bearing the weight of his parents’ and siblings’ deaths on his shoulders. It’s too much for him to handle, overwhelming him all at once. He can’t kill the man before him, the one thing that he set out to do, the one thing he needs for closure. Tears stream down his cheeks as he grits his teeth, fingers hovering above the trigger.

You can see the struggle in his eyes.

“I killed your family, you know.” Ludovico whispers softly, as if trying to edge him on. Seonghwa gasps as the man admits it outright, not the least bit of fear or doubt in his voice. Heaving gasps leave his throat as he fights to pull the trigger.

“Hyung? Hyung, are you alright?” Wooyoung asks, eyes narrowed in concern. He won’t interfere, knowing that Seonghwa needs to do this for himself, but he is starting to get worried over his hesitation. Seonghwa shakes his head desperately, barely keeping the gun pointed at Ludovico’s head.

“Why?”

The man in question raises an eyebrow, as if he didn’t hear the question properly. “Excuse me?”

“Why…” Seonghwa swallows his emotion, fighting to speak coherently. “Why did you kill my family?”

“You don’t want to know, Hwaseong.” The man sighs, turning around without paying any heed to the three guns pointed at him. Your heart leaps into your throat as he moves to his desk, opening a thick book of records. Seonghwa closes his eyes for a moment, trying to compose himself.

“I want the truth. I thought you… I thought we could trust you… that we were friends.”

“Well…” Ludovico exhales, still hunched over the book. “That’s what I thought too, when I heard the news of the Treasure being back in town. Hwaseong, do you know why your parents were hung?”

Seonghwa flinches visibly at the last word, but nods slowly. “During the announcement… the man in charge of the hanging falsely accused my parents of consorting with pirates.”

“According to the reports of Sir Lucio Bartholomew, the head of the piracy investigation, I find the Park family guilty of consorting with pirates and ****…”

Yes, he remembers. He remembers that fateful day, every word the official had said until those too, had faded into white noise. His innocent parents and siblings who had been hanged at the gallows for no reason at all, dangling at the end of the noose, every last gasp of air they had taken as they slipped further and further from this earth-

“You falsely accused them of consorting with pirates.” Seonghwa’s body is shaking, whether from rage or emotion, you don’t know, but you have a sinking feeling in your chest that just won’t go away. Something is going to happen. “You lied and my entire family was sent to the gallows.”

Lucio Bartholomew is silent as he stares at Seonghwa, then he speaks.

There is nothing but surety in his voice, and with three simple words that upend Seonghwa’s world in the space of a single breath, does the world come crashing down around you.

“I didn’t lie.”

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 2255 Summary: The one where you feel aroused whenever your soulmate does

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 223

Madara was halfway through the speech he’d spent hours preparing, in full view of the entire council of advisors, when his words stumbled and his entire body grew warm. From the other end of the table Hashirama and Izuna gave him looks of great concern. He avoided both of their gazes. After clearing his throat he cast around trying to pick up the threads of his carefully laid arguments and continue on but the stride had been broken, the careful build up he’d been relying on interrupted by an untimely wave of something he really didn’t want to think about in a room filled with stuffy clan heads. 

“We’ll have to think on this matter a little more,” Yamanaka-san told him when he stuttered to a halt for the second time. 

“Don’t give me that,” Madara snapped. He knew as well as everyone else in the room what that meant. It meant no. “I haven’t even gone over-”

The words failed on his tongue as another wave of heat washed over him. Whatever his soulmate was doing at the moment he hoped someone came along and interrupted their fun at just the wrong moment. If his day had to be ruined by their untimely lust then it was the least they deserved in return. 

At the very least a careful look around the room showed that no one seemed to have noticed exactly what was bothering him. Hashirama’s gaze had already fallen back in to a bored, empty look. Izuna was frowning with open concern. Most of the advisors were either drumming their fingers with impatience as they waited for their own turn to speak or jotting notes down on the papers in front of them. Out of everyone in the room Tobirama was the most likely to notice, his eye for detail surpassed by very few, but the intensity of his gaze hadn’t changed in the slightest and despite how closely he’d been watching since Madara stood up from his chair the man’s expression hadn’t so much as twitched. 

They weren’t exactly very close but Madara knew Tobirama well enough to know he would have at least some sort of reaction to seeing the head of the Uchiha clan grow hot with lust in the middle of addressing the council. 

“I have a few thoughts on this matter myself,” Hyuga-san piped up and that was when Madara realized that he'd lost this argument. It didn’t matter whether the points he’d been trying to make were good or valid or benefited the village as a whole. The Hyuga clan head would always stand in opposition to him and somehow the man had wheedled himself in to better graces with the others than Madara would ever be able to with his naturally caustic personality. They would side with Hyuga-san as soon as he finished speaking. Just because he already knew it would happen, however, didn’t mean he had to like it. 

For the rest of the meeting Madara slumped in his chair with arms crossed and jaw rigily set, doing his best to project as much insult and anger as he possibly could. Partly because he really was feeling that way and he wanted the rest of the council to understand how much he did not appreciate their favoritism. It was also partly to cover the gentle waves of arousal that continued to wash over him from time to time like the other half of his undiscovered bond were being continually distracted by something they found pleasing in all the right ways. If he wasn't so irritated he might have been grateful, actually. Shameful as it would have been to admit to anyone, Madara had been so busy lately that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a few minutes to take himself in hand let alone the last time he’d been able to seek out any form of relationship, temporary or not. Having the time to follow up on the echoes of someone else’s lust would have at least been a great stress relief. 

Unfortunately the hardness inside his clothing did nothing to make the mountains of paperwork on his desk go away. Madara adjusted himself as discreetly as possible before standing up at the end of the meeting, stomping his way out of the room in the hopes he could turn the fire in his blood to a different kind of energy. It sort of worked. He always had been quick to anger, though it was difficult to stay truly angry now that his mind had been thoroughly distracted, supplying him with all sorts of interesting images from the last relationship he’d actually had time for. They hadn’t lasted very long but by all the gods that man could bend. 

When he realized he was contemplating the risks of slipping down in to the archives and hoping no one would follow, Madara shook himself, determined to be productive. The village needed him to do his work and none of the papers on his desk were going to get done any faster if he was off somewhere indulging pointless bodily needs. He would have to soldier on. 

The first thing on his to do list was to pick up the information packet he’d been too distracted to take with him after the meeting, necessary to have with him if he wanted to get anything done on the academy project. His nose wrinkled. Fetching that meant going down to Tobirama’s office since he was the one who’d been handing them out and he was the one who would have gathered up any left behind. Madara was grateful they’d been getting along better over the past few months - it was surprisingly difficult to remember when they’d last fallen in to one of them infamous screaming matches - but he really didn’t want Tobirama’s attention on him right now. Of all people to need something from, of course it had to be the one who always wanted to notice the whole room. 

Several curses for bad luck were still spilling out of his mouth when Madara found himself pounding on the door. Tobirama’s voice rumbled from inside for him to come in, sounding entirely unsurprised. Either he’d sensed Madara coming or he’d made a note of who exactly left their info packet behind. Possibly both. 

“Do I get three guesses for what you need?” Tobirama asked in lieu of a greeting. His tone was almost dry enough to cover the hints at humor underneath but it was there just enough to stoke Madara’s temper. 

“Fuck you,” he snarled without thinking.

“Now, now, Uchiha, if you’re not polite to me then I don’t see why I should need to cooperate with you.”

“Fuck you with a sharp stick!”

Madara knew he had anger problems. Knew that he tended to let his emotions get the best of him with alarming frequency. Right now when his body was fighting off the heat of another’s thoughts was not the time to think about standing down and rethinking his approach. No, he was already too much on edge to even consider the idea of self control and as much as he would later very smugly point out that it all worked to his benefit, at the moment all he could feel was exasperation for himself when Tobirama lifted one of those perfect eyebrows and Madara heard his own voice explode. 

Several months of good behavior went out the door all at once with one great roar of temper. 

Contrary to most of the fights they typically engaged in, Tobirama didn’t seem very interested in fighting back. For some reason that only incensed Madara further, driving him to scream louder, as if the man had done him some terrible wrong by not providing him with a proper outlet for all this unwanted energy sizzling under his skin. No matter how he swore and raged and shouted Tobirama did nothing but sit with his chin resting on a cushion of long fingers woven together, mouth set in some enigmatic line, eyes dark and intense as they watched Madara’s every movement. It was almost creepy how closely he watched without ever engaging. 

Yet worse than being stared at like some freakish zoo exhibit were the constant waves of increasing lust. Madara wished he could say that his anger was burning it away like he’d hoped but it only seemed to make it worse. The more he let himself get riled up the more his belly roiled with fire, body almost aching to be pressed against whatever hard surface was most convenient and fucked within an inch of his life. It really had been too long.

If he’d been allowed to run the course of his little temper tantrum and storm off immediately afterwards the way he normally did Madara wasn’t sure he ever would have figured it out. The vicious snarl he let out when someone opened the door unannounced was accompanied by a sharp spike of want that absolutely did not match the face that stared back at him in surprise. Izuna blinked at him once, spared his best friend the same baffled look, then looked at the door he was still holding open. 

“Damn, I need you to add these seals to my office sometime. I didn’t hear a damn thing from out in the hall.”

Madara growled to have his beautifully crafted insults cut off when he was in the middle of a really good stride. His jaw opened to demand that Tobirama do no such thing only to snap shut when he caught sight of the man he’d just been abusing for who the hell knew how long. Of all the expressions he might have expected to see, shame was not one of them. He wouldn’t have guessed Tobirama even knew what shame felt like but there it was in the faint twist of lips and the guilty shifting of weight. It wasn’t until he realized one of Tobirama’s hands was out of sight under the desk that his brain made a leap from Point A to somewhere along the lines of Tab C, sub-paragraph ninety-eight, and then he was left standing just a little outside of his own body, entirely unaware of the world around him. 

By the time his unsuspecting brain had finally accepted the idea that just occurred to him he came back to himself to realize the door was shut, Izuna was nowhere in sight, and Tobirama was staring at him again with something like faint worry hanging between the creases of his brow. 

“Are you hot for me?” Madara demanded with every ounce of tack in his body - which was to say absolutely none. 

“I...beg your pardon?”

“You were watching me just like that while I was making my presentation during the meeting.”

“Failing to make your presentation,” Tobirama corrected him. 

And then he seemed to fall still in anticipation and Madara could only stare as the whole world crashed down around his ears. 

“You do it on purpose,” he breathed. “You make me angry on purpose because you like it! You fucker!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tobirama protested. His voice was steady enough to give the words credence and it would have been entirely believable if not for the sudden bright red color staining his ears.

Madara stomped a little closer to slam both hands down on the desk and shove his face right up to the other man. “Don’t fucking lie to me. You’re hot for this disaster, I can feel it. Every time I get louder you get hornier.”

Watching Tobirama’s eyes blow wide was satisfying but seeing him drop his face in to both hands with the mortification of getting caught was pure gold. Madara enjoyed it very smugly even as he raced to catch up with the true meaning behind his own discovery. In an effort not to flail his way through a moment he’d been dreaming of since the day his mother explained the concept of soulmates to him as a wee little preteen, he cast about for something else to say.

“The only thing I don’t get is what got you hot in the meeting of a fucking council meeting.”

“I like your confidence,” Tobirama’s voice admitted from behind pale fingers. “It’s competent. And attractive.” He could not have sounded more strained if the words had been tortured out of him. Madara chewed that over for a minute before deciding he liked it. This he could definitely work with. 

“Right. Well, I am going to get absolutely nothing done until I can think straight again so here’s what is going to happen. You want confidence? Good. Then you’re going to follow me home, you’re going to follow me in to my bedroom, and then you are going to follow every single order I give while you rail me in to the mattress. Are we in agreement?” 

He’d never seen Tobirama move so fast in his entire life. One second they were separated by the very solid wood of a sturdy desk and the next he was standing in a six foot shadow blinking at surprisingly delicate collarbones. He grinned to see the blush revealed now that Tobirama wasn’t hiding behind his hands. It had been far too long but it wouldn’t be too much longer. Madara freely gave in to the urge to cackle as he led his soulmate away to go work off a little energy before they could talk about this with level heads. 

[nbrook29]

99 🖤🖤

Hello there! You’re officially my last dialogue prompt 🤩 I’m sorry this took so long, anon, I hope you’re gonna like it at least a little 🤓

I don’t take prompts for this challenge anymore. Just wanted to put that out there 😇 There are so many amazing ones on that list, but as of now I have 3 WIPs and one additional one in the works and I’d like to finish them before wtfock ends 😅

Anywho, here you go!

99. “I don’t think I’ve ever played spin the bottle.”

* * *

Robbe is going to kill Moyo. 

In fact, he's going to kill all three of his so-called friends because none of them protested when Moyo, tipsy and on his way to drunk, announced that this party sucked and was in dire need of some spice. 

He wishes he had listened to his past self and stayed home just like he had originally planned. It was supposed to be a quiet night in, editing videos or maybe spent in bed rewatching Romeo and Juliet in peace with no broers around to mock his movie choice while stuffing his face with onion chips and pretending the movie does not make him emotional, no sir. The wetness in his eyes must be sweat, not tears.

Then, after the movie would have ended, his sulking levels high, it would be time for his favorite activity of recent - daydreaming about reality in which he actually had the fucking guts to make a proper move instead of turning red everytime a certain someone was in his close proximity; smiling at him with that perfect sweet lovely smile that turned his already gorgeous features so much more beautiful that Robbe could weep.

And doesn’t that sound like a magnificent evening?

It may sound kinda lame, Robbe is a man enough to admit that, but the prospect of spending the night watching his friends salivating over girls they can’t get being the alternative wouldn't be particularly alluring to anyone, he guesses. Especially since he never partakes in that salivating part himself, instead chugging one beer after another and playing his designated role of a wallflower. 

Story of his life.

The whole thing just plain sucks, because it’s not like his friends aren’t well aware of the fact that Robbe’s interests lie elsewhere and that he’s usually bored out of his mind at those parties. But when there’s at least a semi-attractive girl around them they don’t care about anything else but getting her number and Robbe’s not exactly their priority then. In fact, he could well enough not be there at all and it wouldn’t make much difference. It happens every time they drag him along to those parties and every time he just stands there, rolling his eyes on their embarrassing attempts of flirting. 

Not like he’s the master of flirting himself, but even he’s not capable of stooping as low as they usually do.

This time, he reluctantly agreed to come to this one, against his better judgement, after Jens bugged him about it for their entire biology class, trying to convince him it was going to be more of a small gathering rather than a party. And frankly speaking, he did that just to make him shut up so mrs Jansen stopped glaring at him. Like he was the one running his mouth.

Once Robbe said the magic words “I’ll be there” there was no way of getting out of it. Still, his plan was to come by for an hour or two to get the broers of his back, drink a few beers, talk to Jana maybe, and then quietly leave when everyone would be too drunk and too busy tonguing at each other's tonsils to notice he's gone. 

But to his surprise, the party turned out not to be the typical banger they usually attended. It wasn’t even that bad and he was kinda having fun since he wasn't forced to play the guys' sidekick-gay-friend this time around and instead was dragged by Zoe to the kitchen to drink shots with her, Jana and Luca right after he arrived.

However, parties are not really his scene in general so when it started getting really late he finished his last Buttery Nipple shot composed by Luca (don’t ask) and was just about to make an apologetic face at the girls and say his goodbyes. 

But then Noor and Brit arrived. 

With him.

And Robbe almost swallowed his tongue.

Nobody should have the right to look this good but there he was, laughing with Milan in the hall while taking his signature leather jacket off, running a hand through his smooth like silk hair (Robbe's convinced it's indeed very silky) to ruffle it a little like it ever needed any styling, and in general looking like he had just walked out of Robbe's dream straight into Milan's apartment. 

Sander Driesen.

The reason for Robbe’s cheeks being permanently stained pink as of late.

They met at one of those after school clubs led by Amber several weeks ago that Robbe came to only because he agreed (after pretty much being blackmailed into it) to play Aaron’s wingman in winning Amber’s heart. 

He was gone as soon as those green eyes met his and the boy in front of him, wearing a black Bowie t-shirt and a leather jacket, shook his hand while smiling a little unsurely but still friendly, never breaking their eye contact as he introduced himself in a honey-like voice that penetrated every cell of his body, knees buckling a little, heart stuttering, the whole shebang.

He’s still thanking god he managed to hold back the whimper that was about to get out when he was saying his own name back.

Needless to say, the meeting became much more bearable after that.

Even having to witness Aaron’s cringeworthy attempts of gaining Amber’s attention weren’t that bad anymore. Not when they made Sander chuckle under his breath and catch his eye over Amber’s shoulder, winking at Robbe with a mischief dancing in his eyes as he bit his lip to keep his own laugh at bay. 

And then, Amber came up with some stupid “love excercise” or whatever the fuck she called it and made them all hold hands in a circle. She claimed it released stress and spread positivity or some other bullshit, but Robbe was convinced it was just a ploy she came up with to hold the school’s number one fuckboy Senne’s hand (who, if Robbe had to guess, also wasn’t there out of his own free will). 

Robbe wasn’t a very touchy-feely person, especially with people he had no business of touching in the first place so the whole thing was beyond painful. Thankfully, Jana came to his rescue, snatching his right hand as they exchanged smirks over Amber’s lofty speech about positive energy filling their bodies.

But then someone else gently took his other hand and when he went to inspect who it was, annoyance already starting to creep in, his mouth went dry, eyes going up, up, up the person’s leather-clad arm before stopping on Sander’s face, looking far too entertained.

The boy took an overly deep breath, eyes closed and face feigning seriousness, breathing out loudly.

“Ahh, I can already feel that rush of energy,” Sander leaned in to whisper to him, a teasing tilt to his voice making Robbe giggled at his antics. 

“I guess Amber was right then.”

“No no, I don’t think it’s Amber’s techniques, I just think it’s because of you.”

Robbe just gaped at this shameless flirting, receiving another wink when caught blushing deep pink. Sander seemed unfazed though, totally chill, like saying lame lines and winking at boys was in his everyday repertoire. It definitely wasn’t like that for Robbe, and definitely not from boys as cute as Sander.

He should have probably rolled his eyes at him, called him cocky and full of himself. And yet.

There was something about Sander’s demeanor that screamed it was all a facade, and that underneath there was a huge dork that came out right after that guard was let down. Robbe couldn’t even be annoyed with the smug winking because it was adorned with such a cute smile that it called for a fond eye roll rather than scoffing.

Before he could form at least a half cool response, Amber started shushing all of them with a bossy face, glaring at every person that dared to make a sound. So with a rush of sudden boldness, Robbe just squeezed Sander’s hand and looked at him from under his lashes, biting his lip in an attempt at being coy (and cringing at himself internally) despite his body thrumming with nerves standing this close to Sander, and for some unknown reason it brought the desired effect. 

Sander kept smiling at him surreptitiously throughout the entire meeting, making him laugh with his playful faces at some of Amber’s more ridiculous statements, and it felt like they had an entire conversation even though they didn’t exchange one word during that half an hour.

When they were finally free to go home it was after 21, Robbe realized with a whine. After they all collected their things and were ready to leave, Sander turned around in the doorway, searching for Robbe’s eyes while ignoring the rest of their friends crowding against the door, and when Robbe glanced furtively into his direction his expression turned almost bashful as he said bye, Robin.

And then again with the winking.

Good god this boy.

And how cute it was he couldn’t actually wink? It looked more like a reinforced blinking, but he still looked cute doing it.

Once Robbe came back home that evening, thoughts occupied with bleached hair and the smell of leather jacket, he couldn’t stop himself from searching for Sander’s social media. In just one sitting he gathered a handful of information, finding out Sander was a year older and recently transferred to his school (which would explain how he had missed him in the corridors). He also had a photo with Amber down at the bottom of his profile and from the caption it seemed like they were cousins. 

Robbe’s fingers hovered over the ‘follow’ button, but he didn’t want to seem like a stalker so he just closed the app, throwing his phone on his bed in exasperation feeling sorry for himself and his inexperience in talking to boys.

The universe decided to be graceful for him for once in his life though and put Sander on his path again only 3 days later.

Like every Saturday afternoon Robbe was in the skate park with the broers, taking piss of one another’s skills and trying out new tricks while basking in the October sun that felt more like it was full on spring rather than the beginning of fall. He was in the middle of showing off some of his best tricks to the sounds of his friends hollering when he caught sight of bleached hair in his peripheral, almost falling straight on his ass. But luck was on his side and he avoided making a spectacle out of himself. 

Once he was safely on the ground, skateboard under his foot, he glanced in the direction of white hair one more time to see Sander lowering his vintage camera and whistling, making an impressed face and promptly causing Robbe to downcast his eyes bashfully.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Robin.” 

Robbe sighed. “It’s Robbe.”

“I know, but isn’t that a cute nickname?”

Robbe ducked his head, smiling a little to himself, cursing the heat rising in his cheeks. “Are you always this annoying?”

For a moment, Sander seemed to be taken aback, but then he must have noticed the teasing glint in Robbe’s eyes because he relaxed visibly, confidence back on his face.

Then, easily and offhandedly, he said, “No, just with very certain people.”

If Robbe had any doubts before about Sander taking immense pleasure out of teasing him, he didn’t anymore. He was flashed with another mischievous smile and then Sander nodded at the bowl.

“That was pretty awesome.”

“Thanks.” Robbe scratched at the back of his neck self-conciously, ignoring his friends’ intrigued faces and praying they didn’t say anything stupid. “To be honest, these aren’t even that difficult, anybody could do them...”

“Pff, I tried this skateboarding thing once and let me tell you, I was an absolute disaster so don’t sell yourself short.” Sander nudged at his shoulder with a knowing look, the contact sending a shiver through Robbe’s entire body. 

“So what are you doing here if you suck at it?” He sent him a toothy grin when Sander gaped at his brazen words, faux-scandalized. 

He then lifted his camera swiftly and took a photo of Robbe’s dumbfounded face.

“I’m only around this deadly thing to take artsy pictures of cute boys.”

Looking very proud of himself, Sander laughed at his indignant spluttering, refusing to show Robbe the photo at first, giving in a few seconds later under his killer pout (Sander’s words). 

“So, is this where you spend your afternoons?” he asked casually once they sat down at a nearby bench, Sander scrolling through his camera roll and showing him the photos.

Robbe nodded, watching Aaron from afar attempting the backside ollie and failing miserably. It pulled out a snort from Sander.

“Well, you’re definitely better at it than your friends.”

Elbowing him in the side as a sign of loyalty to his friends, he replied. “Jens is actually better than me.”

Sander sent him a curious look. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“What?! Eww, no! I have way better taste than that.” It’s not like he’d admit he had crushed on his best friend a year ago. So, hopefully, he sounded convincing.

Sander lifted his hands in surrender, laughing at his outburst. “Okay, okay, message received, only the cutest boys for you,” he paused, biting at his lip to hold his smirk. “Makes sense,” he muttered under his breath, but Robbe heard him anyway.

Later that day, he got a instagram notification that informed him that earthlingoddity was following him as of now and damn if that didn’t make Robbe’s heart beat faster.

earthlingoddity sent you a link

S: Considering today’s unfortunate incident, I made you a bowie playlist, need to teach the youngsters like you the real music 😎😏

The first message from Sander made him scoff, but he rolled his eyes at himself anyway when he remembered his conversation with him at the skatepark, asking about the shirt and prompting Sander to quiz him about David Bowie’s songs.

Robbe hid his face in his hands at the mere memory.

Space Cowboy.

How embarrassing. 

Sander tried so hard not to burst out laughing at Robbe’s confusion when his answer was met with a blank stare, bless him.

R: So you're one of those people?

S: What people?

R: Self-righteous hipsters 😜

S: Now now Robin

No need for names 😩

R: It's Robbe

R o b b e

S: Okay Robin ;)

R: 🙄

Unbelievable

S: So 

What's up? 🙃

They kept up at this casual texting for 2 recent weeks, getting to know each other, and Sander confirming that he does, in fact, have a soft side. Robbe also realized he was a much bolder person when no face to face interaction was required when he had more time before responding to Sander. Then there were the occasional “hellos” at school when they crossed paths in the halls, but so far their friendship, if he could even call it that, hadn’t evolved further.

In fact, this party was the first time Robbe had seen him in a week.

Their eyes met for a few short seconds and Robbe waved at him, immediately after wanting to bang his head at the table because who the fuck waves these days? 

Sander didn’t seem to mind this dorky display at all, beaming at him from across the hallway and not paying much attention to Milan who was talking his ear off. A second later, he was out of Robbe’s sight, dragged by Milan and the girls to the living room, leaving him staring longingly after him. 

Before Robbe got his shit together and on shaky legs went there to maybe squeeze out a few words to him, Moyo was already on his way of arranging people into a circle and producing a bottle to spin. 

What a bad fucking timing.

This was so not Robbe’s idea of fun so he started to surreptitiously backing off to the hall to slide out the door but Jana, the traitor, grabbed his arm and sat him next to her, seeming very excited about the game.

It’s not like he was the only one reluctant to play though. Sander’s face looked rather bemused too.

“Come oooon, Sander,” Noor groaned at him, pulling at his sleeve relentlessly to make him plop his butt on her left side. “You promised to leave that sulky slash lovesick face at home and have fun. This is fun!”

“I think we have a different definition of fun, darling,” he retorted, his gaze sweeping through the half-drunk faces, stopping at Robbe’s for a millisecond. It was so quick he thought he imagined the apprehensive look on his face, but then Sander did sit down, letting out a long-suffering sigh and promptly avoided his gaze throughout the game. Which was clearly an intentional effort because they sat exactly opposite each other.

To say Robbe was confused would be an understatement.

And that’s how he finds himself here, sitting in a circle amongst his friends and several strangers who keep hollering and shoving tongues in each other’s throats. He had one close call when the bottle spinned by a redhead girl almost pointed at him, making him hold his breath but then stopping on Moyo sitting on his other side, who was way more eager to fill the deed.

When it’s finally Sander’s turn to spin the bottle, Robbe's heart starts beating double time and he twists his fingers nervously. He realizes with dread that there is no good outcome of this situation; if it lands on any of his friends or any of those few people he only vaguely recognizes, he’s going to have to watch Sander play tonsil tennis with them and his stomach turns unpleasantly with something akin to jealousy at the mere thought. 

But if it lands on him?

Oh god.

The bottle is spinning already, Robbe having missed the moment Sander put it in motion, too busy wrangling with his thoughts about what he should do. The fact Sander has been avoiding his eyes ever since they started this stupid game makes him even more nervous about the whole thing. 

Then the bottle stops, pointing at him so accurately that it leaves no room for question.

And Sander’s face positively falls.

Sitting near him Jens and Moyo are giving him subtle thumbs up and not so subtle shit-eating grins with Aaron next to them clearly confused at their behavior all the while Sander looks like he’s in pain.

Eyes glued to the floor, body rigid, looking like he’d want to be anywhere but here.

People are staring at them, waiting for something to happen and Robbe feels nauseous.

And so humiliated. 

How could he misinterpret Sander’s behavior so much? And it’s not even that, not really. Does the idea of kissing him disgusts him that much he can’t even give him one stupid kiss to avoid putting Robbe on the spot?

From the corner of his eye he can see Noor elbowing Sander in the side and there’s an entire conversation happening between them without one word being uttered. 

Then, several things happen at once. The boys let go of any subtlety and start whooping and hollering like they want to force Sander to make some kind of move, there’s a loud whack coming from the kitchen where one of the couples went to continue their PDA so Jana and Zoe get up to check the damage and then Adi, who has been rummaging through the liquor cabinet for the last ten minutes, yells that he found a ten year old whiskey, making the broers scrambling off the floor to get their hands on it.

The rest of the people are still here with them though. Still staring. And Sander still seems to be rooted to the spot.

And Robbe has had enough. 

Ignoring Noor’s soft Robbe, he gets up and with a heavy heart almost runs to the door, putting his jacket on in a haste, frustration and shame cursing through his body as he runs down the stairs two step at a time, wanting to get outside as fast as he can.

The cold air washes over him once he reaches the entrance and he breaths in shakily, feeling his eyes welling up despite his hardest efforts not to cry.

It just hurts. It really hurts. And if he’s being honest with himself, the fact that there have been witnesses to his humiliation is a small part of the reason why he feels this way. It’s about the fact that it was Sander.

Sander. This boy who let him believe there may actually be someone interested in him. In that way. Sander, who flirted with him, complimented him, smiled at him, listened to him and sent him Bowie playlists.

Sander, who he felt more connected to recently than to any of his friends. 

He wipes at his eyes angrily, scoffing at the fact that this asshole was able to make him cry, when he hears rushed steps on the sidewalk behind him.

“Robbe!”

Walking faster, he tries to ignore the sound until there’s a hand on his shoulder stopping him in his tracks. He turns around ready to blow out in Sander’s face but the boy is faster.

“I’m so sorry for that,” he pants, voice tinted with desperation, apologies written across his face as his eyes flit all over Robbe’s like he’s trying to read his mind.

But Robbe only lets out a humorless laugh. “No worries, I understand, you were very clear. Point taken,” he sneers, starting to walk again.

“No, you don’t understand,” Sander pleads with him, taking his hand in his own to keep him from leaving. Robbe wants to pull it back, but the distressed look in Sander’s eyes makes him hesitate. “I didn’t want our first kiss to be a part of some stupid game. Not when I spent weeks trying to come up with a perfect scenario for our first kiss in my head.”

Robbe promptly loses his breath at his confession. 

“You wanted to kiss me before?” 

“Ever since I saw you,” Sander confirms in a small voice. His demeanor lacks the confidence Robbe got acquainted with, ripped of any trace of the usual conckiness. Instead, Sander appears almost shy, biting his lip nervously as if waiting for a blow and heart-breaking rejection.

There won’t be a rejection though. Not tonight. 

Without second-guessing himself, Robbe takes that one step that still separates them and seals their lips together, hands drifting to Sander’s rosy cheeks on their own, like there was a magnet pulling them in. Sander is stunned at first, his lips unresponsive, but it only takes about three seconds for his brain to catch up and then.

Then.

Then there’s Chernobyl in Robbe’s head.

Fuck.

The way this boy kisses.

Phew.

Robbe’s brain shuts off as Sander’s mouth moves over his with intention, sliding together in a rhythm that leaves him breathless. It’s almost impossible to keep all the noises that threaten to escape inside, one small whimper getting out without Robbe’s accord, but it’s okay because it gets swallowed by Sander’s unyielding lips right after it leaves Robbe’s, making Sander pull him even closer.

Eventually, they have to stop, getting dizzy from the lack of air. When their mouths do separate though it’s only for a centimeter and they keep panting in that small space between them, soon breaking out in quiet giggles.

“I've wanted to kiss you ever since I saw you too. Ever since that stupid meeting,” Robbe admits, feeling brave and like he’s floating on air, no confession scary enough right now. Sander looks very pleased with his words, and Robbe can feel the telltales of his regular confident smile coming back to his face under his lips when Sander pecks him softly.

Then, he draws back, regarding Robbe with eyes full of mischief.

“I only joined to meet you.”

That makes Robbe cock his brow in surprise and he searches his face for a lie or at least a joke, but he doesn’t find any. “You saw me before?”

There’s a pause and then Sander’s smile turns softer. “I saw you the first day of school.”

And, wow. He did not expect such a turn of events. 

“You were sitting at a lunch table with your friends, deep in thought, looking so beautiful you took my breath away. It felt like I saw an angel.”

Blood floods Robbe’s cheek and he drops his eyes under Sander’s intense gaze, because he’s not used to such praise, or praise whatsoever. And then there’s Sander, looking at him like he’s something precious, like he hung the moon and stars, touching him so gently and kissing him so passionately and Robbe feels like passing out.

Sander must have sensed he was getting overwhelmed because he chuckles quietly and cradles his cheek in his palm, thumb sweeping under his eye in a soothing motion as he leaves a few small kisses on his other cheek, melting Robbe in a pile of goo right there on the sidewalk, quiet night around them.

Once he pulls himself together, he can’t resist the tugging at the corners of his mouth and a full-blown smile blooms on his face that’s instantly matched by Sander’s own.

“You know, I don’t think I ever played spin the bottle before but I’d give it zero stars on booking.com,” he declares suddenly pulling a laugh out of Robbe. “I was so scared I’m gonna have to watch you kiss somebody else, phew!” He places a hand on his chest comically, turning on the dramatics. “My poor heart wouldn’t take it, Robin!”

And fuck, he’s so cute that Robbe can only laugh at this (his?) dork, fondly rolling eyes at his antics.

“Yeah, I didn’t want anybody to kiss you either. And it’s Robbe,” he adds with a long-suffering sigh, futilely, he’s sure, but it’s still worth it because Sander’s cheek in tongue expression lets him know the boy loves to rile him up and is not going to stop anytime soon.

Still, to wipe off the smug smile for the time being he pulls him back into a kiss by the lapels of his leather jacket and Sander doesn’t exactly protest such. The second kiss is slower, more thorough, but still mind blowing enough for Robbe to feel heat tugging at his stomach.

“Will you go on a date with me? Tomorrow? Or any other time you’re free? Please?” Sander whispers in the small space between them after they finally break apart, foreheads resting against each other and fireworks going on in Robbe’s brain. Despite them standing so close Robbe can see Sander’s face pretty clear, and he can see his hopeful but tentative expression as he waits for him to answer, eyes growing unsure with each second of silence.

Not wanting to keep him in suspense anymore, he gives his parted lips one more lingering kiss, too weak to resist them when they shine so prettily in the street light above them. “Tomorrow sounds perfect.”

[princess-of-riviaa]

I Won’t Say I’m In Love

Request: How about a oneshot with him and reader reciting a scene from a future film project. Reader is secretly in love with Henry(but being insecure enough about herself and her looks that she never would deserve him). The scene reveals an intense love confession, that would end with more..amorous activities. With all those feels inside, reader do not have a problem to get in the right emotional set for the scene. Even Henry is baffled - anyone else he would complement for their skills - but she, his crush, made his heart flip… In the end of the scene readers tongue slips, embarrassed she tries to leave, but Henry wont let her… Amount of feels,fluff or smut is up to you… by @scorpionchild81

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Author’s Note: I chose one of my favorite scenes from The Tudors for this because it has very intense undertones and thought it would fit perfect for this oneshot.

Warning(s): roleplay, dry humping, Henry is a very eager boy

Word Count: 1,759

“Do you…” You clear your throat, trying to get into character. “Do you play cards, Your Grace?”

Henry keeps his eyes on you as you read from his script. He’s clearly fighting a smile at how terrible you are at this, though he does his best to stay in character. You’d agreed to help him go over his lines but you hadn’t made any promises about being a skilled acting partner.

“Sometimes,” Henry replies, giving you a look that makes your heart race. It must be the way he’s meant to look at the other character in the scene because Henry has never looked at you with that dark glint in his eyes. It makes your toes curl.

Henry Cavill is your best friend. You’ve grown up together. He’s been by your side as you struggled through college and you cheered him on as he struggled to find a film that would make his acting career take off. But you’ve also been in love with him since you were old enough to understand what love is. You’d been more than willing to run lines with him, but hadn’t realized that it was a love scene until you did your initial read-through.

“What game shall we play?” you ask in a monotone voice as you read the next line.

Henry clears his throat. He drops the act as he says, “Margaret’s supposed to be… seducing me.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What game shall we play?” you moan out.

Henry laughs, though it’s more half-hearted than you expect it to be. Your eyes might be playing tricks on you but… is he blushing?

You clear your throat and say the line again, this time trying to say it right. The words bounce playfully off your tongue as you speak flirtatiously. “Better?” you ask.

Henry clears his throat and nods. “Y-yeah.”

God, this is so uncomfortable. You laid it on too thick. He’s probably regretting this idea now.

Henry scoots forward in his seat and rests his arms on his legs. You two are sitting across from each other with less than a foot of distance between you. It feels casually intimate, just how the scene is supposed to be. You ignore the way your heart begins to beat faster and heat rises up your neck.

“You choose,” Henry says, once again Charles Brandon.

You continue on in the scene, exchanging lines back and forth like it’s a casual conversation. Henry’s hand sneaks around your leg to the underside of your knee and tickles you. You gasp and shy away from his light touch. Another look at the script tells you that this isn’t part of the scene. What’s he doing?

You read your next line, “Don’t tease me, I don’t like it!”

Henry pauses for long enough that you look back at him. His eyes are serious and you know him well enough to sense the glimpse of pain in those beautiful blue orbs. “Will you like it when an old man tries to make love to you?”

Make love to you. You practically gasp at the way those words sound coming off his tongue, so sinful and teasing that you want to taste them. And damn if the way he’s looking at you doesn’t make something in your stomach tighten.

You force your gaze to return to the script, silently hoping that you’re not blushing as brightly as it feels like you are. “Y-your Grace goes too far already.”

“The Gospel says the truth will make you free.” You can hear the smile in his tone, teasing your character, pushing boundaries.

Your grip tightens around the paper in your hands. “Now you are blasphemous. M-my poor…” You clear your throat. Is it suddenly hot in here? “My poor ladies shouldn’t hear you.”

Henry stays silent, his gaze locked on you as you read the next lines in the script. Margaret’s serving ladies curtsy and exit, leaving her alone with Charles. Margaret moves to the door and closes it before stomping to Charles’ side.

You look back up at Henry. The distance between you suddenly feels nonexistent. Your heart is racing now, petrified that he’ll be able to read your thoughts written all over your face. He watches you with hesitant interest, but you can’t tell how much of that is Henry and how much of it is Charles.

“I want you to leave,” you say, not having to look down at the script as you read the next line.

“Do you?” The way he says it--it’s not even a question and you think yes, he can see right through me. He’s playing with me, trying to get me to the point of admitting everything--

You swallow. Your voice shakes as you say the next line. “Y-yes. Now.” The heat inside of you is making it impossible to breathe, to move, to do anything but look at him.

Henry inches towards you, a smile on his mouth as his eyes stay serious. His gaze is locked on yours as he murmurs, “Pity. I had a winning hand.”

You can practically feel his lips move as he speaks, you two are so close. You can’t breathe and you swear it feels like you’ll implode if he doesn’t touch you--

Your gaze falls to the script just long enough to see the next stage direction: Charles and Margaret kiss. Oh--

Thick, calloused fingers are gentle on your chin as he moves your face up. You move just an inch until your lips meet his. It’s barely a brush of your mouths but it’s enough to set you on fire. You’ve wanted this for so long, dreamed about it too many times to count, and now it’s finally happening. His mouth moves hesitantly against yours, testing the waters. Once again you can’t tell if it’s supposed to be Charles kissing Margaret, or Henry kissing you, but you’ll take it either way. You don’t know if you’re meant to deepen the kiss but you do. He loses all sense of hesitancy when you begin to kiss him back. His hand moves to the back of your neck, pulling you closer against him and you gasp as his other hand wraps around your back to pull you onto his lap. Your hands move to cup his face. You run your fingers along his stubbled jaw as he kisses you so deeply you feel it in every inch of your body. He breaks the kiss to start sucking on your neck.

“Oh, Henry!” you gasp out.

Both of you freeze.

Shit.

Fucking shit.

You weren’t supposed to say that.

You weren’t supposed to kiss him back, yet somehow you’re on his lap. How the hell are you supposed to explain that? Oh sorry, I was just getting carried away with the scene. You’re not an actor; he won’t believe that in a million years.

You’re a goddamn idiot.

Henry pulls away from you first.

You can’t bring yourself to look him in the eye.

“Uh… that’s probably a good place to stop,” he says.

You force yourself to nod, wishing the ground would swallow you up. “Yeah, I think you’re right. We should definitely stop there.” Forgetting yourself for a split second, you look back at him--

Fuck.

The way he’s looking at you… His pupils are completely dilated, his mouth parted as his breathing comes in short, shallow clips. His face is flushed and he looks--god, he looks like he wants to kiss you again.

“Henry…” you breathe out.

His gaze bounces between your eyes and your mouth. “Or we could… not stop. I mean, I need all the practice I can get.”

Your focus zeroes in on his lips, already red and starting to swell. You bite your lip at the things running through your mind right now. “Practice makes perfect,” you agree.

And suddenly you’re kissing again. His hands squeeze your hips and move you against him. You gasp when you feel his erection straining against his jeans. Fuck, this is arousing him too. His mouth moves from your neck to your exposed chest; you’d opted to wear a low tank top today and are suddenly aware that that was the best decision you’ve ever made. Your body and brain are no longer in sync. Instead your body works its own agenda as your hips move against him, rubbing your clothed core against his erection. Henry’s grip tightens on your hips and the pain is delicious, burning your insides even more. Your touch is gentle on his chest, ghosting over his body like you’re afraid that you’ll make the wrong move and realize that this is all a beautiful dream--

Henry grabs your hand and moves it lower. Your fingers ghost over the muscles of his stomach before resting over his jeans. Warmth radiates from his bulging erection, burning through his jeans. His mouth finds yours again as you palm him over his jeans and you swallow every delicious moan you pull out of him. You know how to give an amazing handjob and use that knowledge to your advantage. It doesn’t take long for him to start bucking up against your hand.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “If you don’t stop--”

“Cum for me,” you whisper as you nibble on his ear. “I want to make you feel good.”

You squeeze the shaft of his cock again before rubbing your hand up and down his length a few more times.

His body tenses against you and his grip on your hips tighten even further as he moves close to the edge. Your teasing touches are unrelenting, drawing his orgasm out of him with skilled movements. He throws his head back as he grunts out. The sight of his parted mouth and closed eyes is something you’ll never let yourself forget. He’s angelic when he falls apart; it’s something you want to witness again and again and again. And the thought that you’re the cause of it--

His seed soaks through his underwear, wetting his jeans and dripping onto your hand. Even after he comes down from his high, he keeps his eyes closed, like he wants to bask in this feeling for as long as he can. “This is… a little embarrassing.”

“Funny,” you murmur, tracing the outline of his mouth with your fingers, “that’s not the word I was thinking of.”

His eyes finally open. “That was… just part of the scene, right?” He sounds hesitant, hopeful almost.

“Y-yeah,” you say, hoping the lie is believable. “That was all for the scene. Nothing more.”

***

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