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thecapricunt1616 · 3 months

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Peach (c.b. one-shot)

Blurb (More BTC!) : You could tell Carmy had a bad day from the sound of the door slamming, and then a called “sorry! Didn’t mean it babe” and by the looks of his cheeks that were a flushed red that matched his chest when he’d taken his hoodie off, he’d had a really long run. It felt a bit wrong, but sexy that it felt so, as you watched him tug off his shorts, then his boxers, revealing his soft cock, and his adorable really even though he got all blushy and shy when you pointed it out bare lily white ass.

♡ One Shot Inspo: Based on ♡this♡ ask from a sweet anon, thank you for your request! Peaches symbolize many things, including longevity, love, and immortality. Peach blossoms are also said to put men into a trance of love. Before the 17th century, peaches were considered a subgenus of the apple, so European cultural representations of apples, such as in paintings and poems, were sometimes transferred onto peaches. This included connotations of fertility and immortality. ♡ Summary: Carmy has a bad day at work, and comes home with an attitude that needs a little assistance adjusting. ♡ W/C: 1.7k ♡ A/N: EEEEEE I can't believe season 3 comes out today yall!!! I am shakin in my boots and so freaking excited!!! I'm going to be binging the whole series likely tonight!!! OMG our boy is finally gonna get out of the freezer! I hope you like this one shot, I may be able to get another out today before the new season but its already 3 and it comes out at 9 so maybe but anywho, I hope you all like!! The drought is almost overrr!!! ♡ Warnings for BTC: Smut!! Fem!Reader, No use of Y/N, swearing, Black!Fem!Reader friendly

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It was a sticky, hot, balmy Chicago summer day. To top it off, it had been raining all day long which meant people had been ducking into The Beef in refuge of somewhere dry and cool, so Carmy had been absolutely slammed with orders all day long. He was feeling antsy, too full of energy.

So it was only normal for him to go on a run straight after work. He put on his black shorts, and white hoodie after changing out of his work clothes and drove to his favorite park. He wouldn’t have known how many miles he’d ran since the parks trail was just one big loop unless he had his phone in his pocket, which it told him 5.

The only other way he’d known he would have ran that much was his hoodie was drenched in sweat, and so was his hair. Like, dripping. Each lap around the trail he had chugged a few large sips from his gallon full of water that was now warm from sitting on the bench on the side of the trail. He had only stopped because he was genuinely exhausted and his water was pretty much gone. But thankfully, his mind had been mostly cleared.

He had to do this before he came home to you. Carmy knew he had…issues, managing his anger. The only way he knew he wouldn’t explode from overstimulation by giving the physical affection he knew you deserved after he was away from you all day long. So if he blew off all of his steam, he could give you what was left of him which was the exhausted, run down version that didn’t have the emotional wearwithall to shut you out or snap at you.

When he came through the door, he came to the bedroom to see you curled up in bed. He sighed softly in relief both at the feeling of the air conditioner and at the realization his day was finally over, and he could relax. “Hey baby” he mumbled, tugging his hoodie off and pushing his sweat slick hair off of his forehead as to not drip on you before leaning over and kissing your forehead. “Gonna shower n’ I’ll make dinner sorry m’late went running. Bad day” he said as he headed off to the bathroom, the door slightly ajar just enough you could see him in the large bathroom mirror.

You could tell he had a bad day from the sound of the door slamming, and then a called “sorry! Didn’t mean it babe” and by the looks of his cheeks that were a flushed red that matched his chest when he’d taken his hoodie off, he’d had a really long run. It felt a bit wrong, but sexy that it felt so, as you watched him tug off his shorts, then his boxers, revealing his soft cock, and his adorable really even though he got all blushy and shy when you pointed it out bare lily white ass.

He ran shirtless most of the time, and his Italian really came through in the summer - because his skin absorbed so much sun in just the time he went on his runs, turning it more freckled and golden bronzed tan of what his winter color was. His hair demonstrated it too, the ends that was and the parts that peek out of his hat. He had tiny noticeable bleach blonde streaks from the sun in some of his curls, Natalie teased that was his color when he was a baby and he should let it come out more.

His stark tan line across his ass cutting just before the dimples on his spine made you smile to yourself, which turned to a pout as he stepped in the shower and you could no longer see him. You sigh softly to yourself at your now lack of eye candy and turned your attention back to the tv when you hear a little groan. “Fuckin Jesus it’s hot out today” he muttered to himself that you could barely hear over the water. But it piqued your interest.

You got up, padding over to the wall next to the bathroom door and listened. Nothing. Damn, you had a sexy little fantasy going on in your head of catching him jacking off or something and offering to join him all sexy, but it sounds like he’s just…showering. You can smell the faint scent of his herby body wash mixed with dove soap, the faint splashing of water every so often as he cleans himself. Found yourself asking if you should just leave him alone, but then again this is something you hadn’t tried together before.

Carefully you nudge open the door and Carmy looks over “oh- hey babe I’m almost done did you need the- woah, okay- hi- gettin in? All dressed?” He teased, a bit confused and surprised when you had just slid open the shower door casually. He looked adorable, hair full of soap, cheeks slightly less pink due to the cool water, it felt a bit like corruption to offer getting him off.

“No uh…” you swallow thickly, eyes flickering to his soapy chest and…yeah, you remembered why you wanted in here in the first place. “Can I…help you- like, relax?” You question and his brows raise in surprise, mouth dropping for a moment before closing again, as if he was trying to find what to say.

This proved true a few moments later when he just said “s-sure- yeah how do you wanna help me?” The heat in his cheeks was coming back.

“C’mere” you wrap your manicured hand around the back of his neck, gently angling him down to kiss you and he gratefully accepts. He nervously keeps his hands behind his back since he didn’t wanna get you wet, allowing you to touch and kiss him however you wanted. “Carmy” you mumble between kisses and he responds with a ‘mmm’ of acknowledgment “why” kiss “aren’t you” kiss “touching me?”

You pulled away a bit so he could answer and he wiped soap off his forehead before it dribbled in his eyes “uh I don’t wanna get you wet, I guess?” He said and you shrug

“Don’t care, you can touch me” you continued ravishing him in kisses and he wraps his arms around you, wet hands finding your back and roaming over the soft skin. It went on like this for a few minutes, biting and kissing and sucking on eachothers lips- when you grabbed his half hard cock at the base and gently stroked it, all the way up to the tip- brushing your thumb over it and going back down, he gasped, forehead falling to your shoulder.

“Fuckin hell” he breathed, his cock getting fully erect after just a few gentle strokes of your soft, pretty hand. He kept his arms wrapped around you, one hand on each hip, squeezing to ground himself as you found a rhythm pumping him with your hand. His moans went all whiny the way they did when he needed more, and you tighten your grip earning a hot,breathy “yes, thank you baby” out of him that made you smirk proudly and turn your face just barely in order to kiss his temple.

“Of course Bear, m’sorry you had such a bad day lovey. But I’m here for you, I’m so happy you let me take care of you. I love making you feel good, do you feel good, Carmy?” You ask in a sultry tone in the shell of his ear. His cock stiffened in your hand, along with a pretty ruined whimper letting you know he was close “can you lean on the wall for me pretty boy?” His stomach clenched as he tried holding himself back, his breath coming more ragged like pants

“So close” he warned “so so close” he repeats.

“I know baby can you sit up” you giggle “I promise you’ll like it” you said and he huffs, leaning against the wall and looking at you with the cat-like ‘I was comfortable and you made me move’ look, until you got on your knees right in front of where he was now leaned against the shower wall near the door, and continued to stroke him with your tongue stuck out down your chin while you watch him with big doe eyes.

His attention returns, mouth dropping hotly and pants resuming as you sped up your hand, using your other to massage his balls. The action had his eyes nearly rolling back and head falling against the wall but he remained all of his focus on you, his girl - his beautiful, amazing girl, on her knees, jerking his cock and eagerly waiting for him to shoot a load down your throat so you can swallow it gratefully, and even lick the tip clean after. God he loved when you did that.

The reminder of your affinity for the taste of his cum had him grunting to cover up his long drawn out moan that tore from deep in his chest as he came harder then he thought he would, needing to lean his shoulder on the wall further as his knees actually shook while he shot rope after rope of white cream into your eagerly awaiting pretty pink mouth. You hum, satisfied at the taste as you continued quickly jerking his cock to milk out every last drop. After you did so, you made sure to allow him to tilt your face up, and admire the cum covering your lips, tongue, and chin, as well as dripping down the back of your throat.

You shut your eyes, swallowing the mouthful with a satisfied grin licking your lips and wiping the remaining cum off your chin and neck with your finger, and then sucking that while you looked him in the eyes. He stared down at you in awe, cock twitching at your movements. Poor thing couldn’t even get soft with the sight of you around. You furthered that torture by gently grabbing the base of his cock and giving the sensitive tip kitten licks to clean off any missed dribbles.

“You are gonna be the fucking death of me” he told you as you got up, and go to the sink to brush your teeth

“Feel better?” You asked and he looked at you in the reflection of the mirror like a confused puppy for a moment before he realized oh, right. He came home in a shit mood after a shit day, and you essentially sucked the attitude out of him.

“Mmhmm” he mumbled and shut the shower door.

You sucked the attitude out of him, not the ego after all.

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realmofimagines · 2 years

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Don’t Make A Habit of Dying (Simon “Ghost” Riley x Reader)

follow @cowboybxtch (my other account) for more ghost content, as i will not be posting on this blog anymore <3

Wordcount: 3241 Content: swearing, near death, graphic depictions of gore, blood, injury, ghost is in love with u, soap is oblivious, heroic ghost, pre existing relationsip, tension Request: no Note: *just wanna preface this by saying it is not proof read lol* i am absolutely unashamed to be jumping on the ghost bandwagon. i finished the campaign yesterday and honestly i sort of rushed through it bc it was a lot of fun so this is sort of based on one of the missions but it’s all from memory so if anything is wrong or out of place just ignore it and lets call it canon divergence AO3 version here

“Fox, how copy?”

You grunted, clawing at the rain-soaked concrete and grit beneath your fingers as you stretched to reach your communications device. Your head was still spinning from the impact, and your eyes blurred as if you were lying underneath a moving river staring at the wrinkled water surface above. A high-pitched whine resonates in your ears, and you are intensely aware of the urge to vomit.

With a sharp breath, you are able to level yourself onto your knees. Your hand closed around the slippery radio, and you pulled it toward your mouth whilst collapsing your back against a slick brick wall. Your free hand pressed against the sharp, pulsating pain in your abdomen.

“(Y/N), I repeat, how copy?” Ghost’s voice crackled.

You swallowed the dryness in your throat, before pressing the voice activation button on the radio. The strong rush of adrenaline burned in your chest, but it didn’t match the wash of relief upon hearing and recognising Simon’s voice. You closed your eyes and relished in the sensation for a moment.

“I read you.”

He audibly sighed. “Thought I lost you there.”

“Nearly did.”

“You injured?”

You stared down and shakily inspected the palm pressed against your wound. Your fingers came away glistening with rain and blood, and your undershirt was soaked a deep red around the site of the injury. You replace your hand on the wound, applying as much pressure as you can muster with a heavily clenched jaw. As much as you wanted to be honest, you knew that due to the personal obligations Ghost felt toward you because of your secret relationship, letting him know just how hurt you truly were could compromise his position. He would, without a doubt, make his way straight toward you.

“I’m alive.”

“That’s not what I asked, Sergeant.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Good. Are you in sight of the church?”

You blinked hard to clear your vision and glanced around your surroundings. Through a rusted, paint-chipped iron gate, you could see the distant glow of the religious building and gathered that it was about half a mile away. You weren’t sure how much steam you had left in the tank, but you sure as shit were going to use every last drop to get your ass to that church.

“Yeah, I see it.”

“We’ll RV there. Johnny’s on his way now.”

“Copy that.”

“Do you have a weapon?”

You fumbled with your gear, cursing to yourself when you found nothing but empty holsters. All that remained on your person was a singular, small combat knife hidden within your boot, and you silently thanked yourself for taking such precaution.

“A knife.”

“That’s all you need. Stay safe, Fox.”

“Sure, Ghost.”

You released the radio trigger and clipped it back onto the front of your tactical vest. With a deep breath, you managed to pull yourself to your feet with the solid support of the brick wall. Your bloodied hand mixed with the rain, dripping down your chilled fingers and spreading the blood down your arms. You looked like a damn mess. You felt like a damn mess.

You first attempted to push through the iron gate but found it chained and padlocked from the other side.

Never the easy way, you murmured to yourself.

Turning back on yourself, you stumbled through a fruit market. Bruised and trampled limes and apples rolled across the puddled floor, seemingly abandoned in a hurry rather than packed away in their crates. Upon leaning on a stall for aid, you noticed that the civilians, presumably the shopkeepers, had been shot dead in their stalls. It was bloody and gruesome and told the tale of just how relentless the military-for-hire group were.

Your wobbly vision was clouded, and your lashes were thick with rain droplets concentrated with the blood dripping from your head. Your lips and fingers were icy cold, and each breath felt like the air was taking shots at your lungs like they were punching bags. You pressed onwards, however, knowing that if you wanted a chance at living that you needed to make it out of the Shadow’s web, and you could only do so by pushing yourself forwards.

The detour through the fruit market leads you to a couple of Shadow mercs, who chatted idly amongst themselves as if they weren’t standing upon the consequences of their war crimes. Families, including children, cried and screamed in the distance. Gunshots followed, and you tried not to flinch against the sound.

The mercenaries were armed, and they were blocking the only route you had. There was no easy way around this, but you had to improvise given your lack of weaponry and physical power. Your body was betraying you, and try as you might, you’d never be able to take these men in your current situation.

You tossed a beer bottle down the alleyway, hoping to distract them enough to get the upper hand. The left merc stubbed out his cigarette with a sizzle under his boot, before trailing down in the direction of the smashed glass in pursuit of the sound. Noticing your chance, you steadily crouch-walked your way over to the lone hostile and plunged your knife into his side and then into his neck.

“Just an empty bottle. It’s nothing,” the other merc stated, then turning on his heel with a final glance at the broken glass before he whipped his head around with a double take to notice his friend in a gargling heap on the floor, and you standing above him. “What the fuck?!”

He raised his gun toward you, leaving you no choice but to slam straight into him to throw off his aim. His gun flew upwards as he pulled the trigger, spraying an arc of loud, bright bullets into the air whilst you attempted to disarm him. He retaliated with a hard shove, though not before you were able to get your hands on the pistol in his hip holster. You flew to the ground with a thud and splash, but before he had the chance to regain composure and take aim at you again, you’d blasted two rounds into his chest, and then his throat. He collapsed on top of you in a heavy heap.

Another soldier rounded the corner, but you didn’t quite have the energy to recognise the threat before it was a second too late.

You were just lucky that Soap barged through the cafe door on your left and took him down with a clean shot straight through the temple. He turned his gaze from the man on the floor after confirming his death and reached over to you on the ground. He heaved the dead mercenary off of your chest and offered you a strong hand. You grabbed onto him and groaned as he yanked you upright, a firm hand on your shoulder to steady you as you fell towards him. With a concerned eye, he straightened you with a gentle nudge.

“Christ, Fox,” Soap murmured, eyeing the wound on your side. You immediately clutched at it defensively. “You’re not lookin’ so hot.”

You wheezed a breath and mustered a smile. “I’m running on fumes, but I’ll be fine. Let’s just get to that church.”

“Aye, Sergeant. I’ll take front.”

“Be my guest.”

You trailed sloppily behind Soap, cursing yourself for your inability to be as sharp as you usually were. You hated being a burden, but you hated letting the team down more. Your carelessness in the fight that broke out with Graves had cost you a life-threatening injury in a team that refused to leave anybody behind, even if it got them killed. You only worried that if you weren’t going to make it, you wouldn’t be able to see Simon before you went and that you wouldn’t be able to tell him you were sorry.

Your heart ached at the thought.

You and Ghost had been dating, briefly. It happened slowly. First, there were inside jokes, and then there were gentle teasing pet names, and then more than friendly touches… until one night the tension seemed to break, and you slept together, which was just a week ago now before everything went to shit. You almost regretted doing so, for fear that now you’d never get to see him again, to touch him again.

You stumbled to your knees and caught yourself barely by planting your hand solidly on the gravelled floor. Soap spun around and cursed under his breath before reaching for his radio.

“Ghost, we have a situation here.”

He leaned forward and grabbed at your biceps, throwing your arm over his soldier for support.

“What situation?”

“Fox was WIA,” he grunted with a low voice, pulling your body towards cover as a squadron of Shadows passed by in pursuit of the gunshots from only a few moments prior. Any second now, they would find the bodies and be alerted of your presence.

“Don’t piss around the bush, Johnny. How bad?”

Soap studied you with an uneasy glance. “We’re gonna need backup if we’re gonna get the lass outta here.”

“What’s your location?”

“Uh—” Soap paused and checked for any noticeable landmarks. “We’re at the coffee shop just a ways from the fruit market—”

“Hang tight. I’m on my way.”

“What about the RV?”

“Stay put, Serg.”

“Yes, sir.”

The distance from the church to the market was about ten minutes, but Ghost cleared the distance in about four. His eyes were cold and steely behind his mask but became soft and expressive upon noticing your strained face and bloodied abdomen. He was gentle when he leaned for you.

“Jesus Christ, Fox,” he murmured, his tone an edge softer than usual. He leaned toward you to help stabilise you on your feet and apologised under his breath when you yelped in pain. “Who did this to you?”

You grunted and leaned against one of his large arms for support. You blinked the rainwater away from your eyes and maintained eye contact with him. Even now, at a time like this, you felt your stomach flip. You were so in love with him and that somehow made everything scarier.

“One of Graves’ boys. Not sure who. Didn’t get a good look before I killed him.” You answered.

“Atta girl,” Ghost praised. Your heart clenched.

Soap stared on with a worried look, his back tense with stress.

“Hold up,” Soap said, raising a fist before lifting his gun to level his eyes with the sights. mercenaries stormed past the windows, and there was a sudden series of heavy bangs on the cafe door that Soap had barricaded with bar stools. “We’ve got company, Ghost.”

Ghost nodded, and then turned to you with an urgent look in his eyes. “Can you walk?”

You cringed at the stabs of pain and clenched your jaw. “Simon, I’m a liability. Leave me here and I can hold them off—”

“I am not leaving you here!”

You blinked in shock at the intensity of his tone. His eyes beyond the mask seemed desperate, and he clutched your face in a gloved hand as if uttering his silent pleas through his palm. You truly believed him and his words, for there was no reason for a man like himself to lie to you at a time like this.

“I said, can you walk?”

You nodded stiffly.

“Then let’s fucking walk,” Ghost answered, tossing your arm over his shoulder to carry the most of your body weight as he essentially dragged you toward the exit point of the cafe. His other hand gripped his pistol so hard that his knuckles began to numb beneath his glove. “Cover us, Johnny!”

Soap tailed your backs with a raised gun, and Ghost was just able to tug you out of the door before the hostiles blasted through and started swarming the place with bullets. Ghost seemed to lug you along with desperation, as you were practically limping at this point.

“You stupid girl, getting me all worried like this,” he cursed, turning briefly to shoot one of the incoming adversaries before continuing onwards. “Do you know how lucky you are that I’m here?”

He was acting characteristically sharp and dry, but you knew that it was just to glaze over his worry. Ghost didn’t often lose his cool, but you were certainly shaking his faith. You couldn’t judge him for his words and simply offered a weak smile in response.

You heaved a laugh. “Let’s just say I owe you one.”

He seemed to soften. “Let me take you to dinner when this is all over. Call it even.”

“It’s a date,” you wheezed, your words accompanied by laboured breaths. The pain was intense and radiated in waves of white-hot pulses and aches that made you limp and shudder in the agony. Your feet and hands were starting to feel numb, and your head felt like it was full of TV static. You just needed a short break, and then you would be able to continue.

You began tripping over your feet, and albeit he tried to keep you upright, Ghost’s strength wasn’t enough to counter the sudden push of gravity as you slumped to the floor.

“(Y/N)!”

Your face was white, and your eyes rolled back. He was immediately at your side, grabbing your face in his hand to inspect your breathing, and then the pulse on your neck with fingers that he’d torn a glove from. He was momentarily relieved when he felt the feedback of your heart, regardless of how faint it was. It was enough to keep going, to revive the easily extinguishable flicker of hope.

Soap rounded the corner, seeming urgent as he fired shots down the alleyway.

“Ghost, they’re gaining on us!”

“Shit!” He cursed.

Without a second thought, he unsheathed his pistol and handed it over to Soap who took it without question. Simon scooped his arms under your legs and back and held you securely to his chest before nodding at his comrade.

“You keep us safe. That’s an order, Serg.”

“Sure, LT, but we need to get a move on— now.”

“Let’s go!”

You jostled in and out of consciousness. It was soft and gentle, like a slow beat of butterfly wings. You would open your eyes momentarily, but there wasn’t enough adrenaline supply in the world to keep you awake, and things would quickly return to darkness. Your grasp on reality started to slip when the blood loss became critical, and the only thing you were aware of was the bruising grip Ghost had on your flesh and the overwhelming fear that you were about to die.

You vaguely notice the sensation of cold marble on your body, and then the tightness of gauze and tape being wrapped around you.

Ghost was manic as he watched your pale, lifeless body show little to no reaction to his movements. He’d torn your battle vest off and inspected the damage beneath your vest. He’d swallowed his anxiety and wrapped you up as best he could with what little supplies himself and Soap had scrounged from the village and proceeded to perform CPR on you when he noticed your breathing had come to an abrupt stop.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

You couldn’t move.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Crack.

A blooming pain in your ribs.

A warm press of lips on your own, and the uncomfortable sensation of being filled with air.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The thrum of helicopter blades. Distant shouting. Ghost’s voice.

Ghost’s voice.

“Simon…?”

——

When you next woke, it was a slow and unpleasant sensation. White, fluorescent lights pierced through your eyelids, which felt heavy to open. The sharp sensation of the gunshot in your side felt dull, and you could tell by the swimming sensation in your head that you were drugged. You vaguely recognised the sound of a beeping monitor, and you flinched. The smell of bleach filled your nose.

“Good mornin’, sunshine.”

Your eyes fluttered open, wincing against the harsh ceiling lights. You turned your gaze to the figure hunched over in a small brown chair— a heavily-built man, adorning a balaclava with a skull painted on it. Ghost.

“Simon.”

“(Y/N).”

You attempted to lift yourself into an upright position, and immediately felt a flare of agony that had you coughing out a broken sob.

“Hey, hey, take it easy there, Fox,” Ghost murmured, immediately reaching forwards to settle you back down. You grit your teeth together and blinked away the sudden onslaught of tears that were born from the shock of the pain. He tried to sit back down, but you caught his gloved hand before he could leave and he didn’t have the heart to pull away. His stature immediately softened, and his thumb smoothed over your fingers and knuckles in an attempt to comfort you.

“They outta put more drugs in you. They sure did a number on you. Surprised you’re still with us.”

“I thought I was going to die.”

Simon huffed through his nose and tugged the chair closer so that he could sit beside you and hold your cold hands in his. “I thought you were, too, sweetheart.”

“How the Hell did you get me out of there?”

You couldn’t see it, but by the wrinkle of his eyes, you knew he was smirking. “This old dog still got his ways.”

A concern suddenly popped into your head as bits and pieces of memories began to slot together. “And Soap?”

“He’s fine, unfortunately.”

You smiled gently, feeling yourself relax a little. You turned to him and held his gaze, suddenly feeling intimidated by his sharp eyes. The heart monitor next to your bed began to beep at an increased pace, and your cheeks flushed.

Ghost seemed bemused. “Am I makin’ you nervous, darlin’?”

You buried your face in your hands and only dared to peek through your fingers when you heard him start to laugh.

“Don’t hide from me just yet. You still owe me a date.”

You threw your hands down to your sides and smiled. “Look who’s gone all soft. I wonder what the boys would think of you right now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t make me regret saving you.”

“Don’t kid yourself, LT, you loved playing hero,” you retorted, a glimmer of mischief sparkling through your grin. You suddenly felt the atmosphere become slightly tense and heavy with the weight and reality of the situation. You could’ve and likely should’ve died back there. You weren’t aware enough of your surroundings to remember just what Ghost and Soap went through to get you out, but you could only imagine.

“Thank you, Simon.” You said, more serious this time.

He glanced away as if embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”

You reached closer and grabbed his masked face. In private, he would remove his balaclava just for you. You felt the selfish desire that he would do so just now so that you could kiss him but swallowed your urges for you knew he couldn’t compromise himself in the med-bay. Too many prying eyes.

He grabbed your hand from his face and kissed it, the warmth and pressure of his lips still present even through the fabric on his face. You were butter in his touch, practically melting through his fingers.

“Just don’t make a habit of nearly dying, you hear me? Nearly gave me a bastard heart attack.”

You smiled, staring at him dazedly. “Yes, sir.”

#simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #cod #x reader #angst #injury #pining #ghost is in love #soap mactavish #john mactavish

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d0youc0py · 8 months

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Warnings: fluffy, meeting for the first time, making plans for a date, GN reader, storms, too long, not proofread

Maybe renting a cabin in-almost- the middle of nowhere wasn’t there best idea. It had been storming for the past four hours, making it impossible to take advantage of the beautiful world outside. You should’ve brought your rain boots.

You were pacing back and forth across the hardwood when your light flickered twice before going out completely.

“No!” You growled. You flickered the switch on and off as if that would do anything. “Fuck.” With a huff you tugged on your coat and slipped into your shoes, using your phone light to guide you. You went around the back of the house fiddling with the power box. “I better not get electrocuted.”

The thought of that alone was enough to make you close the power box. You turned on your heels making your way to the other rental house down the road.

“Hi Mrs. Collier, is your power on?” You smiled at the older woman as she opened the door.

“What’d your roof cave in?” She questioned, taking in your soak appearance. She moved out of the doorway, silently welcoming you inside.

“It’s been on and off for the past hour.” She sighed pouring you a hot drink. “I’ve got spare clothes in the hall closet- don’t want you to get my carpet moldy.” She shooed you off.

“Thank you Mrs. Collier!” You did as she had told and found a nice oversized shirt and sleep shorts.

“So what do we do? Just wait it out?” You questioned sitting at the counter. She pushed the hot drink towards you, then added another candle to the fifty she had on the counter.

“I do what everyone does when something goes wrong. Call John.”

“Who’s John?” You asked. She looked at you with furrowed brows.

“You’ve been living here for how long and you haven’t met John yet?”

You took a sip of your drink and shook your head.

“Well I guess that makes sense.” She sighed. “He’s in the military- high up I think and he does those special agent type things, Y’know like the things you see on TV- anyways he’s gone a lot, never too long but you can always tell when he is.”

“How so?” You pressed.

“The town falls apart, physically. I almost feel bad for the man, never seems to have time to relax.” Mrs. Collier continued. “Someone’s water heater is always going out, or there’s a storm and one time the Hathaway’s fence completely collapsed- sheep got out all over town. It was quite the sight.” She smiled to herself and you wondered for a minute if she remembered you were there. She shook her head breaking herself out of her trance. “Drink up honey, don’t need you gettin’ everyone sick.” She gave a gentle smile.

Suddenly the lights flicked on. You closed your eyes quickly not ready for the burst of light.

“You alright in there.” A gruff voice called from outside. There was a knock at the front door, before the person outside let themselves in.

“Thanks, John. What do I owe you?” Ms. Collier asked, sliding off the stool.

“I’ll take a muffin if you have any.” The owner of the voice suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway. He paused for a moment when he saw you. His face softened and he offered you a polite smile. You were too flushed about his your appearance to return it. “I don’t think we’ve met. John Price. I live about a mile up the road.” (I know he’s British) He extended his hand towards you, not before wiping it on his pants. He wore a black rain coat, with his hood pulled up over a black beanie. The beanie was far too low for your liking, nearly covering his vibrant eyes. As if he read your mind he tugged it up slightly.

“Y/N, L/N.” You shook his hand, pulling away quicker than you probably should. “You said you lived up the road? That pretty cream colored house?” You asked. He chuckled at you. It was warm and inviting.

“Never been one to think my house was pretty, but yes that’d be the one.”

“Order up.” Ms. Collier handed John a large ziplock filled with muffins.

“Thank you, Doll.” John smiled. Ms. Collier let out a giggle swatting at him and you couldn’t help the smile that grew on your own face at the interaction. “Where you staying? Need a ride back?” John turned towards you.

“Y/N’s power is out too.” Ms. Collier spoke for you, smirking at your flushed appearance. “They’re staying one house over.” Ms. Collier pointed towards the direction you came from.

“Let’s get you settled then.” John said, nodding his head towards the door.

“Are you sure?” You asked hesitantly. John nodded his head in assurance and you wondered what it was like to be someone with such a comforting aura. “Thank you.” You stood up, grabbing your wet clothes from the laundry room. “Thank you Ms. Collier.”

“Anytime, Honey.”

You started out the door but John pulled you back.

“Umbrella?” He raised a brow at you. You shook your head. He quickly unzipped his jacket, sticking his hand in his pocket and holding half of his jacket above your head. You instinctively shuffled closer. He was warm and smelled like pine- and a little something else that you couldn’t quite put your finger on but it was smoky. You both began your track to your house, breathing a sigh of relief when you entered almost completely dry.

“Where’s your power box?”

“On the side of the house.” He nodded his head starting towards it. You began digging around your house for some sort of payment for him. He already had some baked goods and who knows what else he earned on his travels. The lights flickered on in no more than five minutes. Heavy footsteps thudded against your porch and John stopped in the doorway, not wanting to wet your entire house.

“Thank you so much!” You praised. “Now I unfortunately don’t really have any food, well anything substantial at least, but I have some cash.”

“Don’t know if you should be telling strangers you have cash in your home, love.” He scolded, shaking off his coat on the porch. You gave him a sheepish smile, to hung up on the endearment to fully take in his words.

“Yeah.” You sighed, still waiting for an answer from him. “So how much?”

“Dinner with me?” He said suddenly. You began to head over to your bag but stopped.

“I’m sorry, what?” You could hardly believe he wanted anything to do with you. Your hair was plastered to your face and you were wearing the worst clothes the 80’s had to offer. “Are you sure?”

He furrowed his brows at you. “Am I sure?” He repeated..“Something wrong with you?” He hummed. You nodded your head, but quickly shook it.

“No. I mean nothings wrong with me. Well that’s not true there’s probably a lot of things- somethings that I’m probably not even aware of. I’m sorry I shouldn’t say there are a lot of things wrong with me but”-

“Breathe, Sweetheart.” He interjected. “I’ll take dinner or you can just call this one free as a ‘welcome to town’ favor.”

“I like dinner.” The words came from your lips before he had even finished his sentence. He chuckled at you again.

“Good, I’ll pick you up tomorrow. 7:30 sharp.” He began making his way down your porch steps, back to his truck.

“Okay!” You shouted after him. “Thank you.” You knew he couldn’t hear you, so you decided it was a thank you meant for the storm.

186 notes · View notes

eleanor-bradstreet · 1 year

Text

Slide (Benedict Bridgerton x Reader)

Benedict Bridgerton x fem!Reader Modern AU Rated: T - language, suggestiveness, whump/blood/injury Word count: 5.4k

Summary: Benedict takes you on holiday to a remote bothy in the Scottish highlands. But things do not go according to plan.

Author's Note: This is an anon request fill for Benedict and Reader stranded in a cabin with an illness/injury. You can't threaten me with a whumpy good time, because this idea completely took over my brain and I wrote it in a day. 😅 Enjoy

“We should take advantage of the break in the rain. Let’s go on a little hike.”

“A hike?” You looked up from the sofa where you sat curled with a book. Benedict was standing by the door of the bothy, excitedly pulling on a coat. You had been having a relaxing holiday. Five days in a private luxury bothy in the Scottish highlands. He had been coming to the spot alone for years to paint and now wanted to share it with you under the pretense of your dating anniversary. You didn’t know if you believed such things deserved celebration, but your work in the city had been draining you lately and the reprieve was much appreciated.

As luck would have it, your trip coincided with the rainiest weather in decades. It was always raining somewhere in Scotland but this was something else entirely. Torrential downpours for sporadic periods each day. But that hadn’t dampened your time together. Thus far, four days of nothing but lie-ins and fireside bottles of wine; reading while Benedict painted from imagination; lazy sex in the mornings and raucous sex at night. It was a bit dangerous that the bed was lofted, as your activities threatened to send you flying off of it. The little hideaway was so secluded that there was no internet and no cell signal, and that was one of the reasons Benedict loved it so much. He said he could hear his muse more clearly without the rest of the world butting in. Neighbors were also an impossibility, as the bothy was situated in a little copse of trees accessible only by crossing a footbridge that skirted a rough cliff edge. Nothing too high off the ground, but narrow enough that your car was parked half a mile away on the other side of the bridge. It was a tiny paradise, just you and the trees and the birds. The rain had occasionally relented to allow you a few rambles nearby, but you hadn’t undertaken anything as ambitious as to be called a ‘hike’.

Benedict was pulling his boots on and waving you toward the door. “Come on! Fresh air will do us good. Let’s go.”

You were remiss to leave your cozy nest but you knew he was right, and his crooked smile was irresistible. With a sigh you rose to your feet, donned your own coat and followed him.

He took your hand as you traipsed through the wet grass down the trail toward the bridge. The air had an earthy musk scent from the previous night’s deluge. It did feel good to stretch your legs. You didn’t even bother asking where you were headed, you would let Benedict lead you. But he suddenly stopped short.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

The path before you no longer led to the footbridge. Instead it ended abruptly at a slanting jumble of boulders. A rockslide off the side of the nearby cliff had completely blocked your exit.

You both stood dumbstruck, puzzling out your next steps.

“I don’t know how we didn’t hear this,” you murmured, imagining the rumbling crash of so many large stones piling upon themselves.

Benedict chuckled next to you. “Well, one of us was being exceptionally noisy last night.”

You smacked him but it only made him laugh harder. Your frustration was building, so unused to being confronted with an obstacle you couldn’t quickly surmount. Or perhaps you could.

“I’m going to climb over.” You said definitively. “It looks solid enough. I’ll get to the other side, go back to the car and get help so this can get cleared away.”

“Well, I’m going with you.” Ben’s brow furrowed, something anxious in his eyes.

You shook your head. “Maybe. But one at a time. Let me test it out and find the footholds. I’m lighter than you.”

“Be careful,” he urged, but you were already clambering onto the nearest rock, pulling yourself over the larger pieces and tentatively resting your weight with each careful step. The top of the mound rose about eight feet off the ground and you scrabbled your way to it easily enough. Standing on top, you could see on the other side that the footbridge was still intact. It gave you a surge of confidence and you stepped forward, eager to scurry down the other side. Then everything sank, your stomach and your optimism as your right foot found a weak spot and shuddered downward in a small cascade of stones, sinking in up to your thigh until you felt it pinned at the ankle, the rocks trapping you in place.

“Shit!” You hissed, tugging uselessly to free yourself. It didn’t hurt, but it had immobilized you.

“What’s wrong?” Ben called from below, panicked.

You gritted your teeth. God, this was embarrassing. Off you had gone with bravado and now the universe was going to show you better. It was going to double down in fact, because you felt the first drops of rain spattering you from the dull grey sky. You clawed at the stones around your leg, able to toss some aside but others were so large you’d never be able to lift them. An animal part of your brain was starting to flood with fear, but you fought to keep your voice steady.

“I’m bloody stuck.” You lamented. “My leg is caught.” It wasn’t a request for assistance, but you should have known how he would react.

“Hang on, I’m coming!” From your vantage point you could see Ben dash forward and begin to climb the rocks, not caring to test the stability of his steps, just rushing toward you. You opened your mouth to tell him to slow down, but your voice caught in your throat as everything suddenly rumbled, an ominous herald of what was coming. You both froze, staring wide eyed and feet apart from one another. Then everything shifted and fell away.

Your entire sense of gravity tilted as the rocks beneath and around you slid, all jumbling together as they surged further away from the cliffside. You felt your leg snap within the grinding stone and cried out, landing on your side and feeling a jagged edge glance across your forehead. Your eyes fell on Benedict clamoring to reach you as he lost his own footing on the tumbling wave. He was unsuspecting, his eyes locked only on you when a massive boulder came rolling as easily as a toy ball and slammed into his side, knocking him out of view and into the tumult of roiling earth beneath you. You screamed his name but it was lost to the thunderous clatter.

Amidst the chaos, one thought began to form clearly in your mind. This was how you would die. Crushed in a rockslide thanks entirely to your own stupidity. And worst of all, you had dragged Ben with you. The nightmare deepened as the sky ripped with a clap of thunder and rain began to pummel you in earnest as everything continued to slide and roll around you. Numb with anguish, all you could do was bury your face in your hands and wait for fate to claim you.

But it didn’t. In what felt like only a moment, everything stilled. The rocks had stopped moving, their sound had died away, and you were lying on top of the mound sensing nothing but the cold patter of heavy rain. You were still alive, a fact that was confirmed by the burning pain you felt pulsing in your leg. Looking down you saw that it was freed, released from the churning rocks, but it was bloodied and wouldn’t respond to your attempts to move it. Though it was a novel experience for you, there was no doubt in your mind that it was broken.

That was the least of your worries. As you came back to your senses they all tuned to one goal. You had to find Benedict. You called out for him, voice croaking, but were met with silence. You pushed yourself up to look around. The slide hadn’t buried the trail any further, only shifted on top of itself. You could see the path back to the bothy on one side and the footbridge on the other. But no Benedict. You screamed his name again, louder. Nothing. A sickening dread started to rise from your stomach as you began to pull yourself over the rock. You couldn’t stand properly and even if you could, you didn’t want to risk disturbing anything. It was better to spread your weight across the surface and so you began to slither on your belly, fingers bloodying themselves on rough edges as you dragged along in the direction you had last seen him. Everything was turning slick and muddy with the rain. You moved back down toward the trail, eyes sweeping, and just near the bottom is where you saw a spot of orange amidst the rubble. His shirt.

“Ben!” You shrieked, half-rising on your good leg to hobble over to him. You reached the bottom of the rock pile and saw him lying at the edge of it. You chanted his name desperately as you landed at his side. He was on his back mostly unhidden, a few small stones piled around his limbs which you pushed away, but one large one wedged over the right side of his chest. He was frighteningly pale and seemingly unconscious, lying still as he was battered by rain.

“Ben,” you called to him, taking his face in your hands. “Ben, wake up!” When he didn’t respond, your heart started hammering. No, no, no. You bent an ear to his mouth, silently praying to every deity you had ever heard of. To your great relief, he was breathing. But he was struggling. Your eyes landed on the boulder, covered in lichen and mocking you. You suddenly hated it more than you had hated anything in your life. With a surge of strength you didn’t know you possessed you drove yourself against it, leveraging with your good knee. It felt like fighting a brick wall and yet somehow after a moment, it loosened and you shoved until it tumbled backward and off of Benedict.

Immediately he took a loud, wheezing inhale followed by a groaning “Fuuuuucccckkkkk.”

You would have laughed with relief if you were not so strung out on adrenaline and hell bent on getting as far away from this death trap as possible.

“Ben,” You shook him lightly. “Benedict, open your eyes.”

He did so, blinking against the rain, taking a moment to focus. Those bright, gentle eyes gazed back at you and made you feel rooted to the earth again.

“We need to get back to the bothy. Can you stand?”

He stared at you, seeming dazed, then brought a hand to your forehead, speaking softly. “You’re bleeding.”

As his fingers came away red, you were surprised that you didn’t feel any pain other than the dull throb of your leg. None of this was important right now. You had to get to shelter and then you could assess all of your wounds.

“I’m alright.” You stated firmly. “We need to go, come on now.”

He wrapped his right arm around your shoulders, the sleeve of his coat ripped and dirtied. You braced against each other as best you could and tried to stand but both fell back with shouts of pain, you unable to tolerate any weight on your shattered leg, and him clutching at his right side. You were in bad shape, but had no other options than to push through. No one was coming to help you and neither of you would leave the other.

You locked into each other’s eyes, breathing hard, and a silent understanding passed between you. Now was not a time for weakness. You would need to be strong for each other. You banded your arms around each other once again and, wincing and gasping, slowly staggered to your feet. Ben leaned heavily across your shoulders while you hopped on your left foot and dragged the other behind you.

Somehow through the pouring rain, with the screaming throb in your leg and Benedict swaying weightily beside you, you inched back along the trail to the bothy, soaked to the bone once you finally shambled inside. You maneuvered to gingerly lay Benedict onto the sofa but he still cried out at the movement. Then he laid still, eyes screwed shut against the pain as he exhaled raggedly through his nose. Spurred to action, you hopped loudly around the small space gathering towels, blankets, water, and the tiny first aid kit stashed in a cupboard. What use it would be, you didn’t know, but it was all you had. You checked your phone, already knowing there was no signal to dial out but instinctively needing to confirm it. Your mind spun. Plans. Actions. Steps. You were going to fix this. You were going to get out of this situation. You just had to keep your head, which was significantly harder to do when the man you loved was lying nearby as pale as a ghost and groaning. But you could get yourselves warm and dry. That was a first step.

After stoking a fire in the woodstove you lowered to sit next to the sofa, clumsily tumbling onto the floor as you winced at the shooting ache in your leg. Benedict’s eyes flew open and he looked at you with concern. “Your leg’s broken?” He intuited.

“Mmhmm,” You nodded, breathing through the pain. “But I’m fine. We need to check you out.”

You mopped his hair and face with a towel, the friction and heat from the nearby stove bringing some color back to his skin. You searched his eyes.

“What hurts? How do you feel?”

He grimaced. “Dizzy, but not too bad. I don’t know if I’m concussed or if I just got hit by a great bloody bunch of rocks.” He ended with his telltale smirk.

You were feeling anything but humorous at that moment. His joke made your insides seize, worried something may be seriously wrong.

“Have you been concussed before? Do you know what it feels like?”

He grinned further. “I have. You don’t grow up with seven siblings and not end up concussed. This doesn’t feel the same, but I can’t be sure.” Your mind started to quest through any errant information you had about concussions. He could read the panic in your expression and brought a hand to wrap around yours. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. If I start to go loopy that’s not a good sign, but I really think I’m okay.”

All you could do was nod tightly, imagining a dozen horrific scenarios and realizing there was little to nothing you could do about them. You simply had to stay focused on the moment and the fact that he was clear headed now.

“What else?”

He waved a hand vaguely over his right side. “Something bad, here.”

As carefully as you could, you worked in tandem to peel off his sopping coat while bit back yelps of agony. You frowned at the sight of his right arm, scraped and lacerated shoulder to wrist, but it didn’t appear to be broken. Then you lifted the hem of his t-shirt and he arched as best he could so that you could pull it off, turning his face away as he seethed into the cushions. You sucked in a breath, horrified by what you had uncovered. A bruise, black and purple and green, mottling the entire side of his body and rippling with each breath. Cursing to yourself, you rested fingertips lightly over it and even that caused him to flinch.

“I think…” you wavered. “I think your ribs are broken.”

He stared at the ceiling, his voice tight but sarcastic. “Yep, that feels about right.”

“Can you breathe?”

“Well enough,” he sighed.

The severity of the situation was sinking in. Hysteria was starting to bubble in your chest but you locked your jaw, determined to keep it together. “What do I… What should I do, Ben? How do I fix this?”

He turned to look at you, his expression going soft. “You can’t fix it.”

That threatened to push you over the edge. Your constitution slipped, your chin started to tremble, tears mounting in your eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He cupped your face with a large hand, pads of his fingers pressing into your hair, urging you to focus. “We’re going to be alright. This is what’s going to happen. Tomorrow is our last rental day and the owners visit the property between guests. So they’ll come, see the path is blocked and know that we’re stuck here. They’ll get help. We just have to wait until tomorrow. We have everything we need here. We just have to be still and wait.”

You nodded, swallowing hard against the tears, ashamed that you couldn’t be stronger but breathlessly grateful that he would comfort you even when he was grievously injured. You kissed the palm of his hand and steadied yourself against its warmth. So very little was in your control, but you were determined to right the things that were. Moving carefully and trying to ignore the protesting pangs from your leg, you dried him off and piled him with blankets. The stove was burning high and the bothy still had the cozy air you had enjoyed the past few days. You stripped off your own soaking tops down to your bra and wrapped yourself in a blanket. Then you wet a rag and started to clean the cuts on his arm, dressing them with the ointment and bandages from the first aid kit.

Benedict watched you silently, something twinkling and bemused in his eyes. You worried that if you stared at him too long you were going to cry, so you focused on your task. Once you were finished he held out his hand.

“Give me the rag.” You handed it to him. “Come here.”

You shifted up to face him, concerned. “What do you need?”

Wordlessly, he pulled your chin closer with one hand and began to lightly dab at your forehead with the other. You closed your eyes, feeling the tears threaten again. If there was one thing Benedict Bridgerton would never cease to be come hell or high water, it was a caretaker of others. You weren’t quite sure what you had done to deserve such a man, but you knew it was imperative that you never let him go. As he wiped the blood away, your cut started to sting. You hadn’t found a mirror to examine it and you frankly didn’t want to. He was your only concern right now.

“Does it hurt?” He asked softly. You were too overcome to do anything other than nod. Then he pulled your chin down even further, leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to your wound.

That’s what broke you. You finally let the tears spill down your cheeks, burrowing your face into the side of his neck. “I’m so sorry, Ben,” you whispered.

“What are you sorry for?” He asked, bewildered.

“I should never have tried to climb those damned rocks.”

He huffed. “You were trying to help us. I’m the one who shouldn’t have jumped up after you.”

You pulled back, sniffling. “You were trying to help me.”

“And look where all of that help landed us,” he smirked, causing you both to chuckle. But his laugh almost immediately turned into agonized gasps.

“Alright, alright,” You put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “No laughing.”

“You need to splint your leg,” he rasped.

“How precisely should I do that?”

His eyes darted around the room. “The kindling for the stove. Take two long pieces and tie them off with towels.”

You began to drag yourself across the floor toward the woodpile, a realization forming that perhaps two people with zero medical training between them should not be as drawn to outdoor isolation as you were. You gathered two sturdy sticks and a handful of dish towels and then scraped your way back to his side.

“Make sure your leg is straight and tie it tight,” Benedict instructed. You nodded but were filled with apprehension. Ever since you had collapsed on the floor, your useless leg had been twisted at an appalling angle. You knew setting it was going to hurt. Taking a deep breath, you reached forward and tugged it straight. A white hot jab of pain jolted through your whole body, causing you to scream. Distantly, you could hear Benedict speaking to you, his hand rubbing circles across your back. His touch was what you focused on, the only thing helping you to fight the nausea as you lined up the wood and tied it tightly on either side of your broken limb, whimpering with each knot pulled. You fell back against the side of the sofa, panting as you found equilibrium and the searing pain faded back to an insistent throb. Benedict wrapped an arm across your chest, the closest thing to an embrace he could offer. You lay in silence together, exhausted, settling in for what was sure to be the longest night of your life.

Warmed by the fire and lulled by the rain driving against the windows, the atmosphere inside the bothy would have been dreadfully romantic if you weren’t both immobilized by broken bones and stranded, awaiting rescue. It would have been all too easy to fall asleep, but you were determined to stay awake until help arrived. You scooched yourself around the floor with all the grace of a geriatric slug, feeding the stove and brewing tea which you helped Benedict to drink as he lay flat. Out of habit you kept checking your phone, wondering if by some miracle a cell signal would appear.

“Sorry there’s no service here,” Benedict frowned. “Part of the whole appeal. Going off the grid.”

“I know,” you ran a reassuring hand through his hair. “It’s not your fault, I just can’t help checking. We need something to occupy ourselves.” Your eyes fell to the stacks of books beneath the coffee table, a motley assortment from the owners and you suspected, prior guests. You began to assess the authors, gauging his reactions.

“Dostoevsky?”

He grinned. “Well, I would enjoy that but I know it would put you to sleep.”

He was right. You set it back. “Ooo! Byron!” You lilted, waving the book at him tauntingly.

He groaned. “God, please. I’m in enough pain already.”

You laughed and tossed it aside. Next was a sleek, mysterious cover with a blurb promising ‘luxurious, unbridled passion’. You smirked. That seemed exciting enough to keep you both awake.

“We’re reading filth,” you announced, settling in next to him again. You had expected something humorous, the kind of tawdry romance novel that every aunt seemed to be fond of. But while the story started out playful enough, the simmering sexual energy woven by the author’s talented prose was so evocative, you both started to squirm. The fearless, beautiful depictions of the lovers’ encounters were so salacious that you were too stunned to keep reading them aloud, your mouth falling open as you blushed instead. Dimestore trash this was not.

Benedict shifted behind you but you couldn’t look at him. “Maybe save that one for later,” he croaked. “Jesus, who wrote that?”

“Faye someone.” You mumbled, setting it aside with a mental note to steal it or buy your own copy.

“Please make me think of something else now,” Benedict pleaded, his voice tight.

“P.G. Wodehouse it is.” You smiled, grateful to have found something light and familiar.

“Brilliant.”

By the time you finished the short volume it was dark outside but the rain hadn’t let up. You could have switched on the lights but that seemed too harsh for the states you were in. The fire was a more relaxing illumination.

Your stomach rumbled, waking up after an extended period of anxiety. “We should eat something.” You had food enough to cook meals for one more day, but could scrounge for now. You trailed a hand lazily over Benedict’s cheek. “What do you want?” He raised a brow. “Scotch. Neat.”

“You’re not drinking in your condition.” You said firmly, eliciting an exaggerated pout from him. “And neither am I. Do you have an appetite for anything solid?”

“Not really.”

“Just bread?”

You knew that would bring a light to his eyes. “With butter?”

You grinned. “Of course.” It was never a question with him. That was the one thing he would always happily eat. Setting off on another crawling journey across the floor to the kitchenette, you cobbled together your dinner. Bread, butter, a bit of cheese, a jar of olives. It would do. It was damn near continental.

After your haphazard meal you found Benedict’s eyes drifting closed, everything about him looking utterly spent.

You held his hand in your own and kissed his bloodied knuckles. “Ben, you’re drifting off. Should you…can you sleep with a concussion?”

His eyes fluttered open, bleary. “Yes,” he mumbled. “Just wake me up every couple of hours to make sure I know my own name. Ask me some questions.”

“Alright.” You nodded, trying to ignore the spike of fear inside. What if he was hiding how he truly felt for your sake? What if he did have a concussion and got worse while he slept? What if you couldn’t wake him up again? Part of you wanted to plead with him to stay awake through the night, but it was overruled by the part that told you to trust him. Choosing hope, you squeezed his hand and laid it across his chest.

“What about you?” He was fading fast, eyes closed.

“I’m not tired,” you lied. “Get some rest.”

Then your vigil began. You set your phone alarm to go off every three hours and brewed another pot of tea. You would stay awake. If anything was compelling enough to combat your wearied body’s exhaustion, it was the need to make sure Benedict kept breathing and that he could come back to you when you woke him. You stayed at his side, studying the angles of his handsome face in the glow of the fire, grateful that he seemed to be peaceful. And you waited.

“Ben?”

“Mmm?”

“Where are you?”

“In Scotland.”

“Why are we here?”

“We’re on holiday.”

“Who is your eldest brother?”

“Anthony.”

“Alright, go back to sleep.”

—

“Ben?”

“Mmm?”

“Where are you?”

“In the mountains.”

“Why are we here?”

“I wanted to paint.”

“Where did you take me on our second date?”

“I said, ‘What do you say we go to Marseille?’”

“Yes, it was awful of you. I finally committed to you and then you said cheesy mad shit like that.”

“But you came with me.”

“I did.”

“And you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did. Go back to sleep.”

—

The third time you woke him, the light was turning grey outside and the rain had weakened to fits of spray. It was the day of your rescue. You just had to wait a few more hours. You decided you should probably wake Benedict for good.

“Ben?” You ran your hands through his hair, coaxing him back.

“Mmm?”

He had awoken so easily each time, it was reassuring.

“Where are you?”

“I’m with you,” he slurred.

Your heart faltered, touched by his response but also concerned at its vagueness.

“And who am I?”

Even though his eyes remained closed, his lips tilted into a small smile. “You’re the love of my life.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Exhaustion, fear, relief and love heaping upon one another.

Your voice trembled. “Where are we both right now?”

“We’re stuck in the bloody bothy.” He spat.

You chuckled, running your thumb over his forehead. He seemed to be lucid. “Why are we here?”

“I wanted to ask you,” he sighed, sounding almost as if slipping back into sleep.

You were confounded. “Ask me what?”

At last his eyes blinked open, settling on you with the steady, blue-grey stare that you could drown in.

“Get my coat.”

Still confused, you did as he asked, pulling his coat from the side of the sofa and handing it to him. It was only when he began rummaging through the pockets that realization struck and you froze. Time seemed to slow as he finally pulled out a small box and tossed the coat aside. He pried the lid open and brought it to rest on his bruised chest so that you were staring face first at a silver ring twined with a sapphire and pearls.

“Ask you to be my wife.” He declared, that timeless cheeky grin lighting his face. You couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t move. You weren’t sure if you were delirious with exhaustion or dreaming. He continued. “The hike was to an overlook. The landscape I painted that you love so much? I wanted to ask you there. I’m sorry we didn’t make it.”

Everything was falling into place. His insistence on this holiday. The uncharacteristic request for a hike. He had meant it to be one of the most memorable days of your life. It had certainly turned out that way, but not in the expected fashion.

Entirely ignoring the beautiful ring, you pulled him into a kiss.

“Oh, Ben.” You weren’t sure if you were laughing or crying or about to faint. You just needed to have him close.

He nuzzled his nose against yours, trying to convey as much affection as he could while not being able to move.

“This isn’t how I wanted it to be, but I need to ask you before anything else goes wrong.”

You stared back at him in alarm. “Nothing else is going to go wrong. Don’t you dare say that.”

He only smiled, devastating with his boyish grin and the cheerful crinkles around his bright eyes.

“So? Will you?”

“Yes! Yes, of course I will.” Your words were muffled into his lips as you kissed him again, hands wound tight into his hair, never wanting to let go. You didn’t feel tired anymore. You didn’t feel your pain. All you felt was him. Even now he smelled so wonderful, tasted so wonderful. He was light and certainty. He felt like home.

When you managed to pry yourself off of him, his eyes were glittering. He plucked the ring from its box and slid it onto your shaking hand.

“In sickness and in health.” He beamed. “I think we’ve already covered that bit.”

“Yes, we have.” You fell upon him again, breathless, everything fading behind the reality that he would be yours forever. It was a twist of fortune you’d never feel worthy of.

A few hours later you were snogging rather ferociously when someone began pounding on the door. It was emergency services. Just as Benedict had foretold, the bothy owners had seen the rockslide and sent help. He was infuriatingly correct in that way most of the time. A team of people dressed in yellow bandaged you both further and expressed surprise as how well you had handled yourselves under the circumstances. The rubble would take too long to be cleared but with specialty equipment they carried you expertly over to safety and into awaiting ambulances.

Your tallied damage was three leg fractures, three forehead stitches, three broken ribs and no concussion. ‘Symmetrically maimed’ as Benedict proudly announced to your family members who sped up to Scotland to collect you. In the subsequent weeks everyone was so busy fluttering around your injuries that no one noticed your ring finger. You and Benedict made a game of it, placing bets on who would be the first. You won the bet when three weeks in, Violet suddenly clamped eyes on your left hand and started yelping. Then added to the endless questions about your harrowing tale of survival, you were peppered with questions about wedding plans. Muscling through each day as a couple of lovesick invalids, you hadn’t found time to make any, but you had agreed on one thing. No matter where you went on honeymoon, hiking would not be on the itinerary.

Tagging: @angels17324 @bridgertontess @broooookiecrisp @secretagentbucky @faye-tale

#bridgerton #bridgerton fanfiction #benedict bridgerton #benedict bridgerton fanfiction #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton x you #bridgerton x y/n #bridgerton imagine #benedict bridgerton x reader #benedict bridgerton x you #benedict bridgerton x y/n #benedict bridgerton imagine #female reader #modern au #whump #romance #stranded

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dilf-din · 7 months

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When You Call, I Come Running

(A Rebelcaptain Fic)

Febuwhump Day 14: Blood-Stained Tiles

WC: 2450

Warnings: canon typical violence, suicide mention, Dark!Cassian almost

A/N: hi happy Valentine’s Day please don’t hate me for whumping up our babies!!!!

Cassian’s jaw was set hard, headset on, eyes flitting between the green dot on the map and the breaking atmosphere around him. Grey clouds thick like smog parted against the nose of his ship as he descended towards the surface, taking much longer than he anticipated before he was met with a black glassy sea and sky, mirroring each other in their churning. Two full moons like beacons in the storm shone white hot light through the thundering clouds, casting scattered reflections across the choppy waves. Everything was dark as pitch, save for those silver pinpricks.

All at once, the planet flashed pure white as lightning seemed to engulf the entire firmament above him. Chains of electricity like string lights over a balcony. It made his hair stand on end.

In between the flashes, the metal runways and landing pads lit up bright silver with dim red lights lining them, and he adjusted his course to land on the nearest one. He couldn’t get his feet on the ground fast enough, get to her fast enough.

He thought of his heated exchange with Mon Mothma before jumping on the nearest ship and speeding towards Jyn.

“How could you send her out alone? With everything going on, you should’ve waited for me!” he spat, the vein in his neck straining along with his voice.

“You know we don’t always have time as an ally,” she said coolly, not backing down as he dominated her space.

“How can you be so nonchalant about this? One of your best operatives has been missing for days and nobody has lifted a kriffing finger to go after her!” he continued to shout.

“They know you’ll come after her, and that’s exactly why you cannot go.”

Cassian shifted his weight from one foot to the other and swallowed hard.

“They asked for the locations of our fleets along wi—“

“And you think I’ll give it all up that easily? Is that it? You think I’ll just betray the rebellion?”

“For her, I think you would,” her eyes softened though her mouth stayed in a hard line. Mon held a very delicate position with Cassian, somewhere between his superior and his friend. She knew the affection he held for Jyn, but she also knew how close they were to winning this war.

“I’m sorry but I can’t allow you to compromise our position,” she said firmly, “You are dismissed, Captain.”

When he stormed out of the conference room, she sank into her chair once more, knowing that whatever he was about to do would not end well. She hated to admit that she was rooting for the rebellion over Cassian Andor’s personal interests.

The wind shook the wings of his ship like they were made of paper, shuddering pathetically as he unceremoniously landed on a waterlogged platform. Cassian drew his hood tight around his chin and double checked the blasters in each inner pocket. He grabbed the tracking device with Jyn’s life source on it and gave it another stare as the green dot seemed to falter. He chalked it up to the storm, buried any concerns he might have before they took root. He was here. She was fine.

He walked down the platform quickly, heavy boots struggling to find traction on the smooth walkway. Rain pelted him from every direction, drenching him through every layer before he had even made it a few feet. The chill from the wind was already clinging to him as it whipped the tails of his jacket behind him. Each step felt like a mile. He feared that at any moment, he would topple over the edge into the sea and never be seen again.

Another flash of lightning and he could see he was only halfway across the bridge. Using every ounce of might he had, he pushed into the gale, pushed towards Jyn. He glanced at the tracker again to find the screen completely blank. It had to be the storm. His blood was running cold from the bite of the wind, but that lit a fire in him.

Cassian began to run, feet pounding and slipping against the thin metal, sending faraway echos into the night. Every breath of cold air was like a knife in his esophagus.

A dim light ahead like a doorway finally came into view. He pushed forward, tripping the sensor and causing it to open. He stumbled inside and transitioned from black nothingness to white nothingness. The hallway he found himself in felt clinical. Sickly fluorescent lighting caused him to squint as his vision adjusted. Water pooled around his feet as he tried to get his bearings. There was no one, organic or inorganic, in sight.

Cassian let the hood fall from his head and shook some of the water out of his hair as he drew his blaster and started down the hallway.

Adrenaline fueled his every move as he tried to stealthily slip through the maze of all white halls. He knew there were cameras, but he didn’t have time to take them out. He wanted someone to find him so he could make them take him to Jyn, so he could make them pay.

He finally crossed a threshold and came face to face with a woman. She had dark hair, neatly braided and pulled back from her face, and large round eyes. She seemed frightened when he spoke to her.

“Where do you keep the prisoners?” he asked.

Her eyes widened even more.

“Answer me!” he barked.

Her lip trembled and he realized that she must not speak basic.

He pressed the barrel of his blaster to her temple, “Take me to the prisoners,” he repeated firmly.

She began to cry, softly muttering in a tongue he didn’t recognize. She started walking him through the labyrinth of halls with trembling hands at her sides. Her high heels clicked loudly against the bright tiles, each step like a second shaved off of the time he had left to get to Jyn.

He wondered where everyone else was. The emptiness was beginning to breed paranoia in his head, and he was careful to check over his shoulder each time they rounded a corner.

Suddenly, they came face to face with a pair of stormtroopers, and the woman let out a pathetic cry as she crumpled to the ground. Cassian quickly dropped one with a fatal blaster bolt and pinned the other to the wall, his forearm tight across his neck.

“Take me to the prisoner, the girl,” he said filled with venom.

Behind him the woman continued to weep softly, huddled into a small ball against the wall with her hands above her head. He was thankful that he didn’t have to pull the trigger. She didn’t look evil, just like someone trying to make ends meet.

As the stormtrooper clunked heavily down the hall with hands up, Cassian’s hearing started to get fuzzy. Something felt off. He tried to shake it as he followed the white form in front of him to another wing of the facility where apparently all the action had been happening.

There were several stormtroopers in this hall alone. Cassian dropped the one in front of him with a shot to the head, and ducked behind the doorway to start firing off precise shots at each of the bodies starting to converge on him.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine clean shots. Nine bodies thudding to the ground as he approached what appeared to be a cell. He swiped a keycard from one of the troopers and scanned it at the data station. A green light of approval hummed above the door, and he walked in with a triumphant look on his face.

But his smile quickly faded when he saw Jyn, lying on the floor, glassy eyes and a hint of a smile. Dead.

No. She couldn’t be dead. This couldn’t be happening. There was another dead trooper lying a few feet from her. Cassian traced the scuffs on the floor to try to piece it together. His eyes followed the line of the trooper’s outstretched hand to Jyn’s limp one. Blaster in hand, fresh hole in her head. The pure white tiles were splattered with her blood. Her precious blood. Staining everything around her red.

Cassian tried to reason through it. The trooper came in. She overpowered him. He began to beat her. She took his blaster and she…. He couldn’t even finish the thought. Before he knew it he was on his knees in the corner spewing bile. His vision was swimming as he grasped desperately at the smooth floor for anything to ground him.

He let out a scream deep from within as he crawled towards her lifeless body, his hands shaking violently.

“Jyn,” he whispered.

He took her cheek in his hand, still warm.

This had just happened. He had just missed it.

Just another minute sooner and she would be in his arms, breathing in his scent like she was supposed to be.

If he hadn’t argued with Mon for so long. If he had been faster on the bridge. If if if.

Each realization was like a blaster bolt ringing inside of his head. The compounding pressure made him feel like he was going to explode at any second. His vision began to turn white with rage. He didn’t need to blame himself. The imperials were to blame. Right on cue, he heard frantic footsteps approaching. Without looking up from her body, he raised his blaster over his shoulder and fired once.

Thud.

Cassian turned to see a crumpled body sporting a grey officer’s uniform.

“I’ll be back for you,” he whispered to Jyn, caressing her cheek once more before rising to his feet. Cassian took the gun from Jyn’s outstretched hand and primed it, heading back into the hallway.

With calm, sure steps, he searched every wing of the facility, blasting everyone he saw. Every shot hit its target, every body fell lifeless. Officers, stormtroopers, scientists, sanitation workers. He didn’t think twice, he mowed each one down. It was as if his body was on autopilot, dealing out retribution like the reaper.

With a faraway look in his eyes, he marched back into the hallway Jyn was being held on.

Muffled crying carried to his ears from another corridor. Cassian walked through the arched doorway to see the dark haired woman from before still crouched in the same position. He lifted the blaster once more and let a shot go right between her eyes.

Once he was sure he had killed every imperial bastard on the godforsaken planet, he backtracked one more time to the holding cell, stepping on the slain trooper’s hand as he walked over his bulky corpse, taking satisfaction in the crunch of bone and armor beneath his heel.

Cassian stripped his jacket off and began to prop Jyn up, swallowing down the memories of what she felt like in his arms when she was full of life. He wrapped the long jacket around her body and pulled the hood up to keep her hair dry. He zipped it snugly just beneath her chin and almost smiled at the way the sleeves fell past her fingertips. She stole his jackets often, always claiming that she ran colder than he did.

He scooped her into his arms and tucked her face into his shoulder, pressing a kiss to her remaining smooth temple before navigating back to the landing pad.

As he walked he spoke softly to her, not even aware that he was doing so at first.

“Mon’s going to kill me for coming out here,” he chuckled, “You should’ve seen her, Jyn. You know the way her eyebrow twitches when she’s trying to stay composed.”

“Everyone will be so happy to see you,” he said softly as he nuzzled the side of her head with his nose.

When he made it to the door he came in through, he paused to draw the hood around her face one more.

“Just another quick walk, almost there,” he murmured, readjusting his grip and holding her tight to his chest.

The rain had lulled to a drizzle for the time being, but the wind was just as strong. Thankfully, the added weight of her body held him steady as he trekked through the darkness back to the ship.

Cassian clambered up the ramp, his limbs starting to fatigue from carrying her so far, but he set her down gently on the pull out cot, making sure she was secure before assuming his seat in the cockpit.

“Almost home,” he said over his shoulder, an unsettling smile on his face.

Cassian shook awake, sweat drenching through his night clothes and the sheets. He pushed the hair back from his forehead and tried to deep breathe. The feel of the threadbare blanket and the sound of the fan humming helped to ground him. Glancing at the empty spot beside him and the warm light coming in through the shades, he guessed he slept later than normal. He chugged the stale water sitting on his nightstand and headed downstairs.

The clay mug he used every morning sat perched on the drying rack beside the sink, ready to be filled with caf to wake him up fully. He splashed some cool water on his face while the pot behind him bubbled and brewed.

Those stale beans quickly transformed into a warm, welcome scent that he looked forward to each morning. Routine had been his close friend after the war. He sought stability, ate the same things, mended the same old clothes.

When his pot of caf was done, Cassian poured the dark liquid to the same line that had been stained into the side of the light brown mug from years of use, and let himself out the back door.

He lowered himself into the open chair with a groan.

“My knees aren’t what they used to be,” he explained with a chuckle. The light filtered through the cover of trees and caught his stubble, some specks of white gleamed where it used to be all dark in his youth.

He sipped his caf for a few minutes in silence, taking in the warmth of the late morning sun, the hum of the insects, and the discordant song of the frogs in the thicket beyond. The pulse of life continued on, as if the world didn’t know what had been lost.

“I had the dream again,” he said softly, his hand reached out to brush the stone that sat in the garden bed he had made for her. His fingers traced each letter and he imagined, like he always did, that if was the soft contours of her body instead.

Here lies Jyn Erso, daughter of stardust.

#febuwhump #febuwhump 2024 #rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptain fanfic

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hollyannewrites · 1 year

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Ditches

This is the beginning of a series I want to work on. Two guys, Benny and Liam, are figuring out friendship, relationships, and how to have a half-decent life. I'm going to do polls at the end of each chapter, so please vote and let me know where you think it should go next!

Benny’s phone rang once, twice, three times before he heard, and one more time before he dug it out of his pocket and answered. At this point in the night, there was not a single person in his life who should be awake, never mind calling him on the phone. The number that came up wasn’t in his phone.

“Hey Benny, it’s Liam,” came a hesitant voice, with a soft pattering sound like rain just behind it.

“Liam, hey. Did you need something?” Benny hadn’t actually spoken to Liam in a few weeks, mostly because he’d been pretty, and only a little because the last time they hung out had ended very awkwardly.

“Um…” his friend trailed off for a few seconds. “I could really use your help?” Liam spoke each word slowly and quietly.

Benny frowned. It was nearly 2 in the morning, and he was planning on going to bed in just a few minutes.

“Can it wait till morning?” He didn’t think he’d snapped, but the handful of silent seconds on the line were tense.

“I mean, not really? But it’s fine, it’s whatever, I can ask someone else,” Liam blurted.

“No, no, don’t call anyone else at this hour, Liam. What do you want?” he sighed.

“Would it be possible for you to—fuck hold on, gotta add a quarter.” There was a jingling and clinking sound, then he continued. “Would you be willing to pick me up from somewhere? I’m a little stuck out here.”

“Out where?”

“Uh, near a place called Paul’s Gasoline?”

“Where’s that?”

“Wish I knew, honestly.”

“Where’s your car?” Benny frowned into the phone.

“Wherever Kaya drove it, I guess,” Liam’s tone was acrid.

“And why can’t Kaya pick you up?”

“Well seeing as how she’s the one who left me here, I don’t think she’d be super willing to turn around and come back.”

“Wait, Kaya left you at a gas station in the middle of the night?”

“Nope.” He exhaled roughly. “She forced me out of the car on the side of the road like half a mile away and I walked to the gas station, which was the only thing out here that’s open. Well, was open. He just closed up.”

“Why would she—”

“Listen, Benny, I’m happy to explain, but I also only have one more quarter for this stupid pay phone, so can you help me out or not? I need to know if I should call someone else.”

Benny sighed, rubbing his temple. “Yeah, I’ll come and get you. I have to look the place up, is there anything else around to map to?”

“There’s a Kroger down the road a bit?”

“Great. Paul’s Gasoline near a Kroger. Sure. See you soon, I guess.” Benny ended the call before Liam could say anything else.

He quickly stepped into his boots, shrugged on a rain jacket, and pocketed his keys. His car was parked a little ways down the block, and his hair was dripping onto his forehead by the time he slid into the driver’s seat.

Google Maps told him that while there were four different gas stations called Paul’s Gasoline, only one was anywhere near a Kroger, and that one was nearly forty minutes away. He swore, then turned the keys. Only Liam would get stuck forty minutes outside of town in the middle of the night and then call him for help.

Part of him felt bad for Liam—it sounded, from his brief description of events, like he was having a rough night. The rest of him, though, was still not quite over what Liam had said to him last time they talked and didn’t really want to see him at the moment.

The drive was mostly dark, country roads, and he didn’t enjoy the stillness of it all, so he connected his aux cord and started playing some Fall Out Boy at top volume. The thrumming bass of the music drowned out any chance at having thoughts, so the long trip didn’t feel all that lengthy.

Pulling up to Paul’s Gasoline, he turned the keys in the ignition. He hopped out of the car into the torrential downpour.

“Liam? You getting in the car?”

From across the street, he caught a flash of movement, and turning to look, saw his friend shuffling over towards him. As he got close enough to be seen in the gleam of the headlights, Benny furrowed his brows.

Liam looked like shit. He was soaked through, dark curls plastered to his forehead, and his shirt and shorts clung to his skin as if he’d just gone swimming fully clothed. Skids of mud streaked his legs and arms, and a twig with leaves was nestled in his hair. Also, importantly, his eyes were rimmed with red—he’d been crying. Heavily.

“You look great,” Benny joked.

Liam just shrugged and shivered against the frigid rain.

“Why are you covered in mud?” he gestured at the mess.

“Walked around a little to warm up and fell into a ditch,” Liam mumbled, rubbing his arm awkwardly. “Do you want me to try to wipe it off before I get in?”

He considered the offer—after all, he didn’t want to have to get his car cleaned—but ultimately, he just wanted to go home as fast as possible.

“Just get in.”

Liam stumbled over to the passenger side and slid in, while Benny got the car started up. There was silence for a minute while he typed Liam’s address into Maps, and when he looked over, his friend was staring out the window, hugging his elbows and trembling.

He reached down and cranked the heat all the way up. They both needed it, he figured. Wet clothes and all.

“So Kaya made you get out of your own car?” Benny questioned as he pulled out of the gas station parking lot.

“Yeah.” The answer was short and clipped.

“How’d she pull that off?”

“She said to pull over and get out or she’d wrench the wheel and drive us into a tree,” Liam answered flatly.

Benny waited for him to laugh, to say he was joking, but he said nothing further.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah.” Again, short and stiff.

“Why the hell would she do that?” Benny couldn’t imagine the energetic girl acting like that, not with her perky ponytail and the rhinestones on her fingernails. Kaya was emotional, sure, but not angry or vicious.

“I broke up with her.”

Benny jerked the wheel at that, before quickly correcting. He snuck a peak at Liam, who had both hands clenched around the seatbelt, knuckles white. His eyes were closed tightly.

“You ended things with her? I thought you two were talking about marriage?” The pair had been dating for a few years, and both had separately mentioned engagement at least a couple of times in the past months. They made a nice sight together, too. She was short, olive-toned, with pin-straight black hair and bright hazel eyes. He towered over her, all curls and dimples and soft body ideal for hugging.

A sardonic laugh from Liam. “We did talk about it. And then we didn’t.” When Benny didn’t jump in to fill the silence, he continued. “She was sleeping with Craig from down the hall. For almost a year now. He left his tie clip in our bathroom, a specially engraved one. I confronted her about it in the car and she said it was just for fun. It didn’t mean anything. Didn’t really change my feelings about it, so I told her I wanted to end things. And you can see exactly where that got me,” he sighed.

“Sorry to hear that,” he replied. And he was sorry, genuinely. Liam and Kaya had seemed happy to him. It wasn’t pleasant to think that a lot of that was a lie.

“It’s fine.” Liam shrugged. He was still staring out the window as the dark trees rolled past.

After a few minutes, Liam seemed to recognize the road they were on. “Are we headed back into town?”

“Yeah, I was taking you home. That’s where I mapped to.”

He winced. “Would it be possible to go to my parents’ instead?”

“It’s your apartment, Liam. She already forced you out of your own car, don’t make the same mistake with home.”

“I’m not. My keys are in the car, so I can’t actually get into my place.”

“You left your keys with her?”

“I left everything in the car. She was busy yelling, so I didn’t think to grab my stuff. Keys, phone, wallet—literally everything.”

“How’d you use a payphone without your wallet?”

“Begged the gas station attendant for money while he was closing. He gave me a handful of sticky quarters out of his pocket and told me to ‘git’.” He made air quotes with his fingers around the last word, tacking on a thick, rural accent to the word. “I appreciated it because it was either beg for quarters in the hopes someone would help me out or start walking and hope I hit the next town before sunrise.” Liam’s tone was light, trying to elicit a laugh, even, but the sour taste was just beneath the surface.

“Well, aren’t you lucky I picked up then?” Benny tried to joke along.

“Third time’s the charm, I guess.”

“Who else did you try to call?”

“Tried my mom and Curtis.”

“You tried to call Curtis before me?” Benny glanced at his friend, incredulous.

“Yeah. Thought he wouldn’t be super pissed about driving out here at night. He was drunk when he picked up though, so that didn’t go as planned.”

“Name a night of the week Curtis isn’t out having a few beers. He’s never a good choice to call for a pick-me-up.” Benny quipped.

“Yeah, realize that now. And Mom, for the record, was probably asleep, since she didn’t answer.”

“Well, I picked up, and I’m stupid enough to go out for a drive in this weather, so I guess it all worked out.” The car made a left onto a narrow, hilly road. “Also, if your mother’s not awake enough to answer the phone, she’s not going to hear the doorbell. You can crash at mine until the morning.”

He hadn’t meant to offer that, but the words left his mouth before he could stop himself.

#hollyanne writes #original fiction #poll #series: ditches #creative writing #original characters #fiction #original work #adult life #relationships #OC: Benny #OC: Liam #OC: Kaya #cheating

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unrepentantcheeseaddict · 11 months

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Have a short story :)

I'm not sure yet whether I want to expand this into a full book or leave it as is. Lmk if it's your jam!

TW for a bit of gore and a panic attack.

The Banshee

Never sail out to the Old Fortress. That’s the number one rule whenever I go stay with my Aunt Robin in England. I’ve always been able to resist the temptation before.

But not now, not after I’ve just been sent to live with her permanently, with the police officer’s words still throbbing through my head, “I don’t think your parents are coming back.”

Not now that I can’t keep my mind from making a beeline back to the last day I saw them.

Not now, when I have to keep my hands and body busy every single second, so I don’t have time to process what’s happened and I can’t have an anxiety attack.

I have to do something. I can’t just sit around in my warmly lit new bedroom. I’ll fall apart before I ever fall asleep. I growl in frustration, setting my phone down, and start to pack.

Knives, climbing gear, energy bars. A fully stocked first aid kit. A compass, a flashlight, a backup flashlight. Extra clothes in case I get soaking wet. Chemical-activated hot packs, since you can’t do much with frozen fingers. I debate whether to bring the phone, but decide against it. I don’t need it when I’m away from civilization, which is where I’d rather be half the time.

I yank on my toughest clothes: layered T-shirts, jeans with rain pants over the top, woolly socks and a matching sweater and hat. And a good coat, obviously. It’s before dawn in British winter.

Tiptoeing out into the hall with my backpack slung over one shoulder, I pause to let my eyes adjust to the darkness before heading downstairs. It’s more dim than actually dark, because the sun’s starting to rise and Aunt Robin is staunchly anti-curtains. I turn a corner into the kitchen and very quietly fix myself a big thermos of hot chai. Being British, and also the best cook I know, Aunt Robin is a tea snob. I've been spoiled by the good tea at her house for years now. I scribble a note onto a scrap of paper.

Couldn’t sleep, went sailing. I’ll be back for breakfast, don’t kill me.

She won’t be exactly happy, but she won’t ground me either. She never does. Well, she might if she knew where I’m planning to go. But what Aunt Robin doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I weight the note down to the dining table with one of the little stone statues she collects.

I’ve never noticed this particular one before, actually. It’s a slender, elegant cat, carved out of white rock. Out of habit, I try to identify the type of stone like my dad taught me, and catch myself just in time as my eyes start to sting.

“No.” I snap out loud. “Bad Jay. Don’t think about it.”

I shake thoughts of my parents out of my head, tamping them down until there’s nothing left on the surface to make me scream. Then I head to the front door and tug on my boots, stepping outside. The cold sea wind hits me like a solid thing and I gasp a little, my breath steaming in the frigid air.

Aunt Robin’s house is a good few miles from any town, right up on some cliffs that drop down to a scrappy little pebble beach. I hike along the edge of those cliffs, admiring the sunrise on my landward side and the dark, heaving Atlantic Ocean on the other. Finally, I get to what I like to call the Staircase of Doom.

Honestly, the term “staircase” is stretching it a bit. It’s more like a steeply sloped trail with the occasional stairstep, carved right out of the cliffs and zigzagging down. There are rickety driftwood railings near the top, but as you get further down, those disappear. There’s nothing to help you keep your balance, nothing to stop you from stepping off the edge into the gloom below and breaking your neck on the rocks.

In short, it’s perfect.

I head down, and I’m about halfway when I see the cat following me. It looks a lot like Aunt Robin’s cat statue. Lean, huge for a housecat, pure white and just about dripping with arrogance. It saunters around my moving feet and plops down directly in front of me. The path is narrow enough here that I can’t just walk around it. I stop, hands on hips.

“Excuse me.”

The cat cocks its head at me. Blinks a pair of startlingly blue eyes. Then settles down and starts licking its butt. A boy cat, I notice.

“You, sir, are a jerk.” I inform him. “Move or I’ll move you.”

He doesn’t even look up. Typical cat. I sigh and scoop him up, wincing as his claws dig into my shoulders.

“Chill, bud, it’s just for a minute.”

I walk until the trail widens, then put the cat down. He gives me a glare, then walks off ahead of me, tail at a jaunty angle as if to say “Just because I let you hold me, doesn’t mean I like you.”

I break into a run as the trail peters out onto the pebbled beach. The cat follows. The sun is mostly up now, and I can see the little dock where my sailboat, the Guinevere, is tied up. She’s bobbing on her moorings as the tide comes in. The rocks shift and scrape under my feet as I head over. I toss my backpack into the boat, then jump in myself. I’m about to untie her when the cat jumps into the boat.

I raise an eyebrow. “I think you’re going to regret this decision in a minute once you start getting wet.”

He heads belowdecks and curls up on the little padded bench that I store things under. I shrug. “Okay, Your Majesty. But I’m not turning around.”

I cast off the ropes and start the motor. I could probably make it to Old Fortress Island on wind power alone, but I don’t want to deal with it while I’m sleepy and distracted. I keep a steady hand on the tiller and steer us through the waves. Cold sea spray gets in my face. I stick my tongue out and catch some, immediately regretting it as the briny, fishy taste fills my mouth. I really should know better than to do that by now. But it’s me, so of course I don’t.

Soon enough, I see the island, looming up out of the mist like some fossilized giant beast. The Old Fortress isn’t visible yet, but it will be soon. I give a little involuntary shiver. Nobody who isn’t from around here knows about the place, it isn’t even on most maps. Some people say it’s from the Dark Ages, some say it’s earlier. A lot of people say it’s cursed. All we know for sure is that anyone who goes there doesn’t come back quite the same. In my opinion, that’s probably because they were high or drunk at the time. I have nothing to worry about. I’m sane, I’m sober, and I know how to handle myself.

At least, that’s what I tell myself as I toss my anchor into the water and hop out. The bitter cold seeps into my shoes as I slosh through the weedy shallows and tie the boat’s ropes to a nearby boulder. I climb back aboard, grab my backpack, and turn to the cat. “You coming?”

In one smooth motion, he jumps into my arms. I snort.

“Don’t want to get your feet wet, huh?”

I walk along the beach searching for a usable path up the cliffs. Eventually, I settle for one that looks the least like it’s going to kill me, stuff the protesting cat into my backpack and start climbing. When I reach the top, I’m greeted by a breathtaking view. I pause for a moment, taking in the pale blue-gray sky and a few soft, peachy clouds, the last remnants of the earlier sunrise. I can see for miles now that I’m higher and the fog is starting to burn off.

There’s the house on the cliffs. The lights are on now, which means Aunt Robin is up and ought to have found my note. I’d better hurry if I want to see much of this place before breakfast. Mentally composing a good excuse for later, I wrestle the cat out of my backpack and plunk him down on the scrubby wet grass and heather. He gives me a look of such betrayal that I can’t help but giggle.

“What, did you think I was gonna cart you around the whole time?”

I unwrap one of the energy bars I packed and eat as I walk, heading into a small stand of wind-gnarled trees. It’s eerily quiet up here except for the distant crash of waves. No calls of seabirds, no little skittery things rustling in the undergrowth. Just my own footsteps as I shuffle through a pile of rotten leaves and the cat’s occasional dissatisfied murp.

And that’s when I finally see it.

The Old Fortress is even more of a ruin that I expected. The stones that form the enormous outer wall are falling out of place as their mortar rots away, revealing the dirt and rubble at the walls’ center. The ones that are still standing are a few feet above my head at their highest point. They’re also covered in fungus, bird poop, and moss. I walk around the perimeter, looking for a way in. Soon enough, I find a spot where I can clamber over the lowest bit of wall. The cat follows me. Hold it. Are his eyes . . . glowing?

“Are you magic or something?” I joke.

I lean in closer, and he looks up at me, all innocent like he has no idea what I’m talking about. Yeah, his eyes are definitely glowing, and not in the normal cat-in-the-dark way. More like there’s shifting, flickering fire inside them, only it’s bright sapphire blue. Well, it’s not like he’s actually magic. That’s impossible.

I shrug. “If you’re bioluminescent, that’s your problem not mine, bud.”

I turn away and keep walking. Inside the walls, things are in even worse shape. In most places, there’s barely a single stone on top of another. I can clearly see that things were well-laid-out here, though. The walls, what’s left of them, are ruler-straight, and the cobblestones are still mostly there, even though there’s weeds climbing up between them. I pick up a piece of worn red pottery. It looks like part of a roof tile or something.

“I wonder if this place is Roman.” I mutter.

I’ve binge-watched enough Time Team with Aunt Robin to know a fair bit about British archaeology and history. The Old Fortress seems to check out with what I’ve learned about Romano-British architecture.

“What you see now is Roman.”

I scream and jump. There’s a boy standing next to me. Like, right next to me. How did he get so close without me noticing? I glare at him.

“Okay, creep, what the Hell are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “Same as you. Getting away from my regular life.”

He’s got a bit of a Scottish accent, not unusual considering how close we are to the border. He’s also the picture of handsome insolence, with dark messy hair and a smirk that could be either playful or taunting, depending on the angle. The cat, like the traitor he is, rubs up against the boy’s legs, purring like a chainsaw.

“I didn’t see another boat.”

“I came from a different direction.” He says.

“Kay. Well, feel free to go back that direction and quit stalking me.”

“I’m hurt.” The boy says overdramatically. “So hurt. I was not stalking you, merely trying to make your acquaintance!”

I snort. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for goofy people, always have been. The boy smiles. Not a smirk, just a regular smile this time.

“See, I’m not that bad. My name’s Brendan, by the way.”

“Okay, fine.” I relent. “I’m Jay. How do you know it’s Roman?”

“Dad’s an archaeologist. I picked up a lot from him. But this site’s a lot older than just Roman. There’s activity here going back to prehistoric times. It’s always been an important place.”

“You should give tours.” I joke.

He shakes his head. “It’s not safe for most people to come here.” Brendan pauses. “Come to think of it, why are you here? And why are you using Robin’s boat?”

“You know my Aunt?” I blurt out. “Don’t tell her I was here. Please? She’ll ground me.”

“Well that answers that question.” Brendan says with a chuckle. “She mentioned she had family in America. I didn’t know you were staying with her currently, though.”

“Well, I am.” I say flatly.

I really, really don’t want him asking more questions about why I’m here right now. I don’t want to be fighting that knot in my throat for the rest of the day. So in time-honored awkward-person fashion, I try to change the subject. Brendan beats me to it. “That cat, is he yours?”

“Nah. I think he’s a stray. He’s been following me since I came down to the boat.”

We chat a bit longer as we walk. I learn that Brendan has two older sisters who are away at college right now, and his Mom is a curator working at a big museum in Glasgow, where they live most of the time. He’s never been to America and is pretty curious. I’m right in the thick of explaining how Halloween works, because boy is this kid missing out, when the cat starts hissing and arching his back.

In unison, we look at the direction he’s facing. There’s nothing there but an old stone circle. Brendan sighs. “This is where you should leave.”

“No.”

He laughs nervously. “Thought you’d say that.”

“Are you gonna explain to me why the cat is freaking out? Or how you know my Aunt Robin? Or why this stone circle is supposedly dangerous?”

Brendan gives the circle a wary look. The morning shadows seem to be darker around the stones.

“In a minute, yes. For now, do you have anything we can use to make fire?”

I nod, already digging around in my backpack for the little lighter I carry. He frowns. “That’s it?”

“Sorry, I left my flamethrower at home.” I snap.

Fear of the unknown is making me tense and jittery. It always does. My anxiety disorder is stupid like that. If I’m ever in a situation where I don’t have all the info, my ridiculous brain starts filling in the blanks with everything that could conceivably go wrong. It’s happening now.

I dig my fingernails into my palms, trying to breathe deeply, trying to tell myself that I’m going to be okay. It doesn’t work. I start shaking, and my fear must show on my face. What’s worse is that Brendan doesn’t try to reassure me. He looks just as terrified as I feel. That means I might have good reason to be scared. My brain latches onto this thought with vicious claws and runs with it.

I draw my largest pocketknife and flip it open, pointing it at the stones. “Brendan. I need to know what’s happening, or I’m going to have a panic attack. Now, please.”

He blinks in shock, then nods. “Okay. The long version is too long for right now, so I’m sorry. Magic is real, monsters come to this island sometimes, and I think one is trying to break through and eat us. Having a panic attack right now is perfectly natural, although it would be more helpful if you could avoid it.”

I glare at him. “Now you tell me?!”

“I thought you already knew!”

We’re interrupted by a long, low wail. It’s coming from a ragged gray shape that’s just appeared in the middle of the stone circle. It turns, and I can see it’s an emaciated, deathly-pale woman. She’s dressed in old-fashioned clothes faded away to threadbare scraps. Her stringy white hair and the skin of her hands is flecked with what looks like dried blood. The freakiest part, though, is her face. Her wrinkled skin is stretched tight over her skull, making her look like an Egyptian mummy with a better nose. Her mouth is wide open revealing toothless gums, and it seems to be stuck that way. And the creepiest thing? She’s crying. The front of her dress is nearly soaked with tears, and her hollow chest convulses with the raspy, wailing sobs.

Brendan curses. “Banshee. Got any earplugs?”

“Earbuds, two pairs.” I toss him my spare pair. “Here. Hope you don’t mind my earwax.”

“It’s preferable to being dead, at least.” He says, putting them in.

I follow suit and scoop up the hissing cat. He flails and scratches until I put him back down.

“Ungrateful little bastard.” I mutter.

The banshee hears me and starts stumbling in our direction. I shudder just watching her. The way she moves reminds me of a zombie from some cheesy old horror movie. Only, I usually think those zombies are ridiculous. There’s nothing funny about the figure shambling towards us now.

I can’t hear her properly through the earbuds, but judging by the little scraps I can hear, that’s a good thing. Her crying is rising in pitch to something like an ambulance siren. Brendan draws a knife of his own. It’s a full-blown medieval dagger, the big kind I’m pretty sure is called a dirk.

“Are we fighting it?!” I holler.

“No choice!” Brendan yells back.

“Great.” I grumble.

And then we don’t have time to talk more, because she’s right there. Weirdly, she takes a lunge at the cat first. He jumps up on his hind legs and seems to grow, white fur glowing, until he’s the size of a panther. One claw swipe and her crying turns to a painfully high shriek as she’s thrown to one side, landing in the heather near my feet. The banshee picks herself up faster than I can get away and digs ragged nails into my arm. I yell in pain and yank away, but that withered hand is way stronger than it looks. She grabs my neck with the other one. I stab her.

By some miracle, my knife actually hits, sinking into one of her eyes. A mix of blood and weird gray goo spurts out. She screams again, and I’m pretty sure one of my eardrums just burst, but her grip loosens enough that I can pull away and stab her again. I miss this time, but she’s already hurt.

The banshee stumbles, then stumbles again, backwards into Brendan. He grabs her hair and drags his knife across her throat. Finally it’s over. We’re both covered in blood and other, less pleasant stuff, and my arm feels like it’s on fire, but we’re alive.

The cat, back to his normal size now, walks over. He’s got a little blood dripping from a scratch on one ear, stark against his white fur. After a minute, he yacks up a big, gross hairball onto the dead banshee.

“You and me both.” I say as a wave of nausea hits me.

Brendan pulls his earbuds out. I do the same.

“This is why you should have left.” He says softly.

“I’m fine.” I snap.

“No, you’re not. You’re shaking, you’re white as a sheet, and your eyes look like they’ll pop out any minute.”

He comes over and looks at my arm. “Take your coat off, we need to clean this. Cat, you too.”

Surprisingly, the cat walks right over to him. Suddenly, the full implications of everything that’s just happened hit me. I start shaking harder, heart pounding so hard it hurts, and the nausea comes back at full force as I curl up, trying to wipe what I’ve just done from my memory.

Brendan pulls me into a hug. Normally I’d punch a stranger if they hugged me without permission, but right now the contact is exactly what I need to ground me in reality. I lean on his shoulder, trying to get myself under control.

“First kill is usually the hardest.” Brendan says. “I’m really sorry that happened how it did. But we do need to tell your Aunt Robin. She’s the one in charge of protecting this area from monsters, I just work for her. A banshee’s the most powerful thing that’s shown up here in years.”

I nod. “Yeah. Being grounded is better than being dead, I guess.”

“You guess?” He teases. “You need to work out your priorities, Jay.”

I swat at him. I can hardly believe I’ve just met this boy today. It feels like we’ve known each other for much longer. I guess fighting monsters together is a good bonding experience.

I take my coat off and roll up my shirt sleeve, biting my lip to keep quiet as Brendan cleans and bandages the jagged scratches. Then we pack up and head back down to the beach, get in the boat, and set off for the mainland. Aunt Robin has some serious explaining to do. Also, I’m starving. I can almost smell the full English Breakfast.

#writers on tumblr #my writing #writing #short story #writeblr

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toihaismoi · 1 year

Video

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The Doors - The End

This is the end Beautiful friend This is the end My only friend, the end Of our elaborate plans, the end Of everything that stands, the end No safety or surprise, the end I'll never look into your eyes again Can you picture what will be? So limitless and free Desperately in need Of some stranger's hand In a desperate land Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain And all the children are insane All the children are insane Waiting for the summer rain, yeah There's danger on the edge of town Ride the King's Highway, baby Weird scenes inside the gold mine Ride the highway west, baby Ride the snake, ride the snake To the lake, the ancient lake, baby The snake, he's long, seven miles Ride the snake He's old and his skin is cold The west is the best The west is the best Get here and we'll do the rest The blue bus is calling us The blue bus is calling us Driver, where you taking us? The killer awoke before dawn He put his boots on He took a face from the ancient gallery And he walked on down the hall He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he Paid a visit to his brother, and then he He walked on down the hall, and And he came to a door And he looked inside "Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you" "Mother? I want to..." Come on baby, take a chance with us Come on baby, take a chance with us Come on baby, take a chance with us And meet me at the back of the blue bus Doin' a blue rug, on a blue bus, doin' a Come on yeah Fuck, fuck-ah, yeah Fuck, fuck Fuck, fuck Fuck, fuck, fuck yeah! Come on baby, come on Fuck me baby, fuck yeah Whoa Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah! Fuck, yeah, come on baby Fuck me baby, fuck fuck Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah Fuck yeah, do it, yeah Come on! Huh, huh, huh, huh, yeah Alright Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill This is the end Beautiful friend This is the end My only friend, the end It hurts to set you free But you'll never follow me The end of laughter and soft lies The end of nights we tried to die This is the end

#The Doors #skyblog

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liriostigre · 3 years

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hey! I wanted to ask what your favorite poetry books are? I have a few but I want to read new and interesting stuff, and I trust your taste :D

hiii ♡

tbh i only started reading poetry collections like,, last year. i'm subscribed to poetryfoundation's newsletter (poem of the day) so i usually just read random poems

anyway, i'm not sure my recs could be considered new (cause i'm gonna start with Mary Oliver ♡) but feel free to message me if you want to know the themes, style, feeling (vibes, if you will) or anything you want to know about these collections. for now, i'm linking my favorite poems in each collection, i hope this helps you choose! ♡

here you go:

Dream Work —Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese.” “Dogfish.”)

Red Bird —Mary Oliver (“Summer Morning.” “Love Sorrow.”)

Blue Horses —Mary Oliver (“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song.” “Loneliness.” “Little Crazy Love Song.”)

The Wild Iris —Louise Glück (“Sunset.” “Retreating Light.”)

Haruko/Love Poems —June Jordan (“On a New Year’s Eve.” “Mendocino Memory.” “Toward a City That Sings.” *under the cut)

Extracting the Stone of Madness —Alejandra Pizarnik (“Primitive Eyes.” “Summer Goodbyes.” *under the cut)

Ariel —Sylvia Plath (“Tulips.” “The Rival.”)

Prelude to Bruise —Saeed Jones (“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat.” *under the cut)

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth —Alice Walker (“Coming Back from Seeing Your People.” *under the cut)

I Must Be Living Twice —Eileen Myles (“Edward the Confessor.” *under the cut)

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth —Warsan Shire (“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre.”)

The Black Unicorn —Audre Lorde (“Hanging Fire.” “Sister Outsider.”)

Bright Dead Things —Ada Limón (“The Riveter.” “Glow.”)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds —Ocean Vuong (“Thanksgiving 2006.” “Logophobia.”)

Postcolonial Love Poem —Natalie Diaz (“Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.”)

Crush —Richard Siken (“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.”)

Once —Alice Walker (“So We've Come at Last to Freud.”)

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, ‘She wrote it and I recognize the reference.’ Please let it go at that. Although it is all the willingness you lend the world as when you picked it up the garbage scattering the cool formalities of Madison Avenue after midnight (where we walked for miles as though we knew the woods well enough to ignore the darkness) although it is all the willingness you lend the world that makes me want to clean up everything in sight (myself included)

for your possible discovery

“Primitive Eyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

Where fear neither speaks in stories or poems, nor gives shape to terrors or triumphs.

My name, my pronoun — a grey void.

I’m familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it’s like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant.

I write to ward off fear and the clawing wind that lodges in my throat.

And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images): the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by. This is how we lost that beautiful animal happiness.

“Summer Goodbyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.

“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat” by Saeed Jones

I. Drugged, I dreamed you a plume of ash, great rush of wrecked air through the towns of my stupor. And when the ocean in your blood went toxic, I thought fire was what we needed: serrated light through the skin, grenade in the chest—pulled linchpin. I saw us breathing on the other side of after. But a blackout is not night; orange-bottled dreams are not sleep. II. I was a cross-legged boy in the third lifetime, empire of blocks in my lap while you walked through the door of your silence, hunting knife in one hand, flask in the other. I waited for you until I forgot to breathe, my want turning me colors only tongues of amaryllis could answer for. It owned me, that hunger, tendriled its way into my name for you. III. In a city made of rain each door, a silence; each lock, a mouth, I walked daily through the spit-slick streets, harbingers on my hands in henna: there will be no after Black-and-blue-garbed strangers, they called me Cassandra. (I had such a body then.) Umbrellas in hand, they listened while they unlistened. there will be no no. after

the world will end no.

you are the reason it no. ends

you no. IV. I didn’t exactly mean to survive myself. Half this life I’ve spent falling out of fourth-story windows. Pigeons for hair, wind for feet. Sometimes I sing “Stormy Weather” on the way down. Today, “Strange Fruit.” Each time, strangers find me drawing my own chalk outline on the sidewalk, cursing with a mouth full of iron, furious at my pulse. V. After ruin, after shards of glass like misplaced stars, after dredge, after the black bite of frost: you are the after, you are the first hour in a life without clocks; the name of whatever falls from the clouds now is you (it is not rain), a song in a dead language, an unlit earth, a coast broken— how was I to know every word was your name?

“Coming Back from Seeing Your People” by Alice Walker

Coming back From seeing your people You were So wonderfully Full Of yourself.

But now You have supped With vampires They have fed Feasted On you.

They arise Bright-eyed Fit.

You alone have lost Not only Your sleep But also Your glow The luster of Affection Heart welcome Your people Sent home With you.

Beloved You must learn To walk alone To hold The precious Silence To bring home And keep the precious Little That is left Of yourself.

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

#btw!!!! i'm sorry!!! SO SORRY it took me weeks to reply 🤕#hope you're having good days <3 #💌

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theonewiththefanfics · 4 years

Text

Black Ice (one-shot)

Synopsis: Black ice is considered one of the most dangerous winter weather phenomenon. It appears after it’s rained or snow has melted and then the rapidly cooling air freezes it, leaving it as a shiny black mirror on the ground. A deadly shiny black mirror.

Pairing: Harry Styles x fem!Reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Warnings: swearing, mentions of hospitals and injuries

Word count: 8852

“God, Harry, it’s just one night!” Y/N exasperated, throwing her hands in the air. “One fucking night I wanna go out with my friends and have some fun. Is that really too much to ask?”

“I haven’t seen you in two months!” he snapped back. “So, please fucking forgive me that I wanna spend a night in with my girlfriend and have her say ‘no’ one time, and make me a priority. Is it so hard to reschedule?”

“Yes, Harry it is!” Y/N stood her ground. “Adam and I have been talking about this for three weeks before we could set a date and meet up. He fucking flew out here! To London! And it’s not my fault you haven’t been home in two months, so don’t put that on me.”

“No,” he shook his head pointing a finger at her. “Don’t pull that shit on me. You knew about my job, you know how it can be, how much I have to travel.”

“I get that, and I’d get your anger if I was fucking off with my friends on our anniversary without any notice or some shit, but I’m not! I made these plans ages ago. I told you about them! How could I have known you’d decide to ‘surprise’ me a week early?”

But the thing for Harry was – he did think there was an anniversary to celebrate. It wasn’t an official one, and he hadn’t told Y/N how much the date meant, but that day was the day they’d met a year prior.

***

He was in the middle of filming ‘Darling Don’t Worry’. This time they'd flown out of California to shoot a scene in the middle of the woods, in the cold of November, which as exciting as it was to have his acting career flourish, Harry wasn't too happy about freezing his ass off in the middle of nowhere.

Y/N, however, lived right next to those woods, her family house having been there for generations, while the location scouts of the movie had chosen the location because the aesthetic could double as the location of the woods behind the mansion.

Y/N’d been out on her daily run (well, daily complaining because Y/N, with all her being, hated running, and thought it was a sign you were a masochist. But her best friend Adam loved running and hated going alone, so he bribed her with the promise of pizza afterwards), when they’d run into pitched white tents, filming equipment and barriers encasing a part of the path they were on.

Adam’s eyebrows furrowed as he slowed his pace, and Y/N thanked god for that because she felt like she was about to pass out.

“What’s going on here?”

“Dunno,” Y/N huffed. “But we should probably leave.”

But instead, Adam grabbed her by the bicep, dragging her forward to the set. “Nope. Come on.”

“Adam!” she hissed. “What the fuck are you – “

“Hi!” He flashed a woman standing by the railing a smile. “Could you-uh-tell us what’s going on? Why’s the path blocked?”

“A movie’s being filmed. Sorry for the disturbance.”

“Mhm, and when do you think you’ll be leaving?”

That she hadn’t expected, given how typically when people saw a movie set, they’d be more than intrigued in getting into a shot or finding out about who were the stars, not when they’d be going away.

“Oh, uh,” she stammered. “I’m not too sure. Depends if the snow starts falling and how much we manage to shoot. Sorry. But uh, would you be so kind and find a path around?”

Y/N jumped in, flashing her a kind smile. “Yes, thank you. So sorry to have disturb –“

“You do realise this is a public place?” Adam raised an eyebrow. “We have a right to be here.”

“Adam, shut up,” Y/N groaned. “We can run around them, it’s not a big deal.”

“But this is our route!”

“Adam for fuck’s sake! It’s the woods, you don’t own them!”

“Exactly!” he said. “And neither do they! They have no rights to infringe on our ability to get to the sea.”

That’s when Harry had noticed her, and to this day Y/N had no clue as to why he’d fallen for her. He was conversing with Florence about the upcoming scene when his ears caught the very end of the conversation, green eyes snapping to where two people in running tracksuits stood.

One of them was a tall burly man, muscles practically ripping apart his clothes at the seams, the other was a shorter woman, hands-on-hips, hair kept away by a headband which also covered her ears, and the most done expression on her face as she glared at her companion.

They were talking with a nervous assistant; Harry could see by her stature and how her head kept snapping to the side in hopes of finding someone above her to deal with the two strangers.

“Adam, I swear to god, I’ll punch you." Harry heard the woman exclaim. "Leave the girl alone! We can run around.”

“But I –“

“Adam!”

“Fine,” he grumbled as he threw the assistant and apologetic look. “Sorry.”

“ ‘S okay. Have my preferred cycling route as well, so yeah… Sorry.”

Harry watched as the woman next to the person, Adam, shook her head and gestured to where the barriers curved around, starting up on a slow jog, and when they passed where he was standing by the trailers, he could hear them still arguing.

“Oh my god,” Harry heard her whisper while looking at the ground. “I’m friends with a fucking Karen.”

“I am NOT a – you’re Harry Fucking Styles!” Adam shouted so hard, it startled Y/N, and when she looked over, it was like a deer in headlights before relaxing and both of them slowed their pace.

“Sorry,” she gave him an awkward glance. “He’s a fan, but we’ll be going and stop bothering you...”

“No, no,” Harry shook his head, putting his hands in his coat’s pockets and smiling. “ ‘S alright, you’re no bother. I’m always happy to talk to a fan.”

“Yes, well, don’t encourage him. Soon enough, you’ll be besties, and Adam here’ll be turning your life into absolute chaos.”

He scoffed looking down at his friend. “I’d like to think I’m taking you out of your boring routine, Y/N, and giving it some spice.”

“Anyway,” she gritted out. “It was lovely to meet you, but uh, we should probably be on our way. You have to be somewhere.”

Y/N’s eyes glanced over Harry’s shoulder, where a nervous AD stood, bouncing on her feet, a weary smile on her face as she caught the singer’s eyes and motioned with her head he was needed back on set.

Harry nodded and wanted to turn back to tell the two to come by whenever they wanted (well mainly Y/N), but when he turned around, the two were already quite a few feet away. Just as he was about to leave, he heard Y/N shout, “Congratulations on the three Grammy nominations, by the way. ‘Fine Line’ was amazing.”

“And that’s a compliment!” Adam hollered jogging backwards. “She only listens to shit from the early 2000s.”

“Adam, shut up!”

With that, Harry was left to watch the two disappear behind the trees, a feeling he was quite familiar with settling in his chest.

It was three days later, when he saw Y/N approaching the set barriers, hands in her pockets, as she rolled her neck. Their eyes met, and even, from the distance, he could see her smile split apart her face, but when she just waved without the intention of coming any closer to the lot, Harry rushed to the side calling out to her. “Hey!”

“Hey!” Y/N responded chuckling and ducking her head down. “You alright?”

“ ‘M alive. How ‘bout you? You doin’ fine?’”

“The bar’s so low?”

“I guess. Won’t be able to get you to nurse me back to health though, which is why I’m in the cold again.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at Harry. “If you wanted to see me, there's no need to lose limbs or bits of yourself.”

Harry hadn’t expected her to be so upfront, but he couldn’t lie and say he didn’t like it. Made it easier for him to understand if his advances were welcome or if he should back off. “So uh, no Adam today?”

“No, he has a late shift at work. Which means I’m spared from the running.”

“Not a fan?” he looked at her with a quirked brow, seemingly saying ‘you’re sure dressed like you are’.

“Do I look like someone who likes stabbing pain in her side and having her heart ripped out of her chest?

“You’re just not breathing properly.”

Y/N sighed. “If one of you gives me any more advice about how to properly run when I don’t even want to run, I swear I’ll stab you.”

“Okay!” he threw his hands up in surrender, laughing. “No more talk about running if I wanna keep my head on my shoulders. Where are you uh going? You don’t have to answer, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Y/N squealed on the inside, but bit her lip to keep the grin away. She’d been dying to talk to Harry since they’d briefly met but had no real reason. Not that she had one now, but she’d had a horrible day at work and needed to clear her head, and what was better than the forest air (also she could scream there without anyone really caring). “You’re not, so don’t worry. I’m uh I’m going to the sea.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose. “There’s sea nearby?”

“You’re like a fifteen-minute walk away from it,” she chuckled, stuffing her hands in her coat’s pockets. “Should really be more aware of your surroundings.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Y/N tilted her head. “Yeah, you’re kind of right. But it’s places like these where you can find the best spots.”

“Will you show me then?”

She looked at him with an unreadable expression, and he could only hope his nervousness wasn’t as apparent, because Harry was more than convinced his erratically beating heart could be heard miles away. But then she nodded, giving him a wide grin, making one of his own bloom on his face.

“You sure you won’t freeze on your way there?” she said in a sarcastic tone eyeing him up and down, and Harry shoved her a bit.

He donned one of the standard down-jackets issued for the movie with winter boots, but given the costume underneath, he was chilled to the bone. “It’s bloody cold, and my toes are freezing off. How are you still standing?”

“Insulated shoes and thermal clothes. Kinda boiling actually.”

“I should steal ‘em.” He smiled at her. “Probably have frostbite by now.”

“Wow, you people from the South UK really are weak.”

Harry’s gasp made her smile as wide as a Cheshire cat. “How dare you!” He dramatically placed a hand on his chest, Y/N’s laughter erupting through the air. It cut through the yells and shouts from the filming crew, and made a warmth spread in his chest. “How do you know about the South versus North? You don’t sound like you’re from the UK.”

“Studied there for three years; had loads of flatmates from all around, let alone course mates.” Y/N chuckled and shook her head. “And to say that I thrived on the chaos was when you said North was better than the South would be an understatement.”

“Well, I guess I know where your loyalties lie.”

“Did you expect me to immediately swoon over you?” Y/N batted her eyelashes at him. “Oh, Mr Harry Styles. Your voice in ‘Kiwi’ was so good it fucked me to cloud nine. Will you please do that to me with your dick instead? Which you should take as a compliment again, considering kiwi is the only thing I’m allergic to.”

“Wait,” he looked at her, eyebrows up to the middle of his forehead. “So you have heard my stuff?”

“Well, I don’t live completely under a rock. I did say 'Fine Line' was amazing.”

“But you don’t really like it?”

Y/N shook her head. “ ‘S not that I don’t like yours or other pop stuff, ‘s just that I have a preference, and I guess it’s, as Adam said, ‘early 2000s shit’.”

A sly smile appeared on Harry’s face. “But could that include by any chance 'One Direction'?”

“Afraid not,” Y/N sighed giving him a pout. “When you came onto the scene, my heart was already taken by a boyband. And I can be a lot of things, but I most definitely a loyal bitch.”

“One band at a time kind of gal?”

“Exactly.” She beamed. God Harry had never wanted to kiss a person that bad.

“Duly noted, but I will need to know who they are, and how many graves do I have to dig? You know, for research purposes.”

“Going method now?”

“What’dya mean?”

Y/N shrugged sniffling a bit from the frosty weather. “Looked up a little bit about the movie. Need to know what kind of people might be around in the area. Psychological thriller. Wife. Rich husband. A dark secret. My guess – someone’s dead and buried. Also, the huge pit we walked past was kind of a give-away.”

He paused for a second before nodding. “Fair enough.”

A comfortable silence fell between the two as Y/N motioned with her head to where they needed to turn and made their way onto a new path when she spoke. “ ‘S not that I wasn’t a fan,” Y/N shrugged glancing at Harry from the side. “The songs were really catchy, but I guess I got tired of them? Like they were on the radio so much, it was a relief I didn’t have to hear the five of you singing about how I don’t know I’m beautiful.”

Harry threw his head back in a laugh. “Don’t worry. Sometimes we’d get sick of it ourselves. But umm, ‘Fine Line’… You said you liked it… Do ya’ have a favourite song?”

Y/N cringed. “Is it cliché if I say ‘Golden’? Because it’s ‘Golden’. I’m a sucker for a slow and then a ‘bam!’ kind of an opening.”

Harry shook his head. Now he was the one biting back a grin. “ ‘S not cliché. Was one of my favourites to write, so I’m glad you appreciate it.”

“Also, it makes me feel sunny? If that makes sense? Like – like when I listen to it, I feel warm and safe and just happy...”

He’d be lying if he said his heart wasn’t pounding in his chest at her words. Warm. Safe. Sunny. “Well,” Harry cleared his throat to keep the words ‘One day I’ll marry you’ at bay. Fuck, he'd only known her for like twenty minutes! “I’m glad you like it more than my previous stuff.”

“You just love putting me in uncomfortable situations, don’t you?”

He smiled, nudging her shoulder with his, and was just about gearing up to take a breath and ask Y/N out (before he could ask to marry her), when quick steps from behind him drew their attention.

Dressed in a typical 50s housewife dress with a black coat on top, Florence Pugh came to stand beside them, and Harry swore he saw mischief twinkle in her eyes as she raked them over both people and then settled on Harry’s companion.

“Hi!” she said giving Y/N a bright smile, and a wink to Harry, which passed the other girl’s head, given how she was absolutely fangirling right now. “I’m Florence.”

“I – yeah – I – you – I love you,” Y/N finally breathed out. “Fuck, I just, you know, 'Midsommar' was a fever dream, but I absolutely loved it, and I can’t wait for 'Black Widow' to come out. Oh my god, I think I’m gonna pass out.”

“Please don’t.” She laughed grabbing onto Y/N’s shoulder. “Feels like I already know you, but I’ve been dying to meet you actually. Created quite the commotion yesterday.”

You know how they say men can think of absolutely nothing, like have a completely blank page in their head? Yeah, Y/N was having that exact moment.

Florence tutted crossing her arms over her chest and looking at Harry with mock disappointment. “But Harry here just kept talking about you, without any intention of inviting you to the trailers, so I had to take things into my own hands.”

“You’ve been wanting to meet me?” Y/N breathed out, hands going into her hair, looking at Harry. “Oh my god, what is happening? Am I hallucinating?”

“No, you’re not,” Harry grumbled glaring at Florence. “Unfortunately. But we were on our way to the sea, so I’ll see you back on se-“

“Hello there,” Chris Pine’s smooth voice interrupted them, as he extended a hand for Y/N to shake as he jogged up to the trio. “I’m Chris.”

“Wow, your eyes are even bluer in real life.” Her own Y/E/C ones widened. “Did I just say that out loud?”

“You did,” Chris chuckled, “but I most certainly take it as a compliment. You said you were going to the sea?”

“Uh, yeah,” Y/N breathed out still gazing into Pine’s eyes. “Wanna join?”

Harry wanted to scream, but he couldn’t really. As much he wanted to tell both Florence and Chris to go away, he didn't. Seeing Y/N’s eyes light up as the two other actors conversed with her, laughed and joked around, made his heart expand.

It was insane to him, that a woman he’d seen twice in his life could have such a huge impact. It was like she’d been his missing part. Well, no. Harry didn’t like that notion – that the ‘right’ person would complete someone. People were complete on their own, but it was true to him that there was someone out there that’d make each and every moment special, someone who would help the other become better, but also hold them accountable when needed.

They wandered around the seashore, which like Y/N had said, was a fifteen-minute walk, for about half an hour before turning back to the woods.

By that point, she’d somewhat calmed down, and could actually comprehend what Chris and Florence were saying to her, and it was rather enjoyable to ask all the questions about Hollywood and the industry most people wouldn’t say on the record.

At around four PM when all of them got back to set and Olivia came to tell them they were wrapping up for the day, Florence, and Chris split from Y/N, telling her to come by whenever she wanted, while Harry said he’d walk her to the end of the trail.

“You know I’ll be fine. I grew up here, know these paths like the back of my hand.”

“ ‘S alright,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure they won’t mind much if I come back ten minutes later.”

“You know, you’re not how I thought you’d be.”

“What’dya mean?”

“I – I don’t even really know… just not how I imagined you.”

Harry didn’t know what to really do with that information, but the look on Y/N’s face most definitely didn’t seem like she meant it in a bad way. In fact, her shy smile and fleeting glances told him otherwise. At least he hoped he read her features right.

They said goodbye with soft ‘see you laters' and he watched her throw one last glance at him over her shoulder before he himself retreated and ventured to the trailers to start de-shedding the character of Jack for the night.

Harry plopped down in his seat with a groan, fishing out his phone from the pocket while the hair and make-up team did their work, taking the products off his face before applying moisturiser to the stressed skin.

Florence poked him in the cheek, and he swatted away at her hand, looking up from Instagram (or his attempts to find Y/N with just knowing her first name). “What’s wrong?” she asked, poking his pouting face again.

“She literally fangirled about everyone but me.” He huffed sliding down even further in his seat.

Florence raised an eyebrow. “Jealous, Styles?”

“No,” he scoffed crossing his arms. “Why would I be jealous?”

“Because literally both mornings that we've got here, you’ve been fidgety, keeping a watch of the path, and didn't calm down until Y/N appeared just now. So I’d say you’re absolutely smitten with the girl and are jealous because she’s more of a fan of us than you.”

“I know she likes me.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I think. She hasn’t told me to fuck off.”

“She’s a stranger you met in the middle of the woods. You should hope she likes you. But not too much. Otherwise, it could so easily become a scene out of a horror movie.”

Chris bit his lip looking at Olivia, who’d come in the trailer after having seen the group come back with an almost heartbroken gaze – it was clear as a summer’s day Harry was struck by the girl, but they had to face the music. “Harry,” he started. “You – you do realise we end filming here in two weeks, right? And she’s a local.”

“And?” his eyebrows furrowed at Chris’ words.

“You’ll be leaving in two weeks for another three months of filming, while she stays here. I don’t – I don’t want to see you hurt, but you have to realise that most likely nothing will happen.”

“And what makes you say that? Maybe she could come with.”

“Y/N is her own person with her own life, job and friends, which, as it seems is all set here.”

“Besides you don't really even know her,” Olivia said as well. “It's been two days."

“Sometimes a day is enough.”

A silence settled over them, as Harry tapped his phone against his nails.

“You guys, come on!” Florence came to his defence. “He likes her. Why not give it a shot?”

He'd flashed her a thankful smile and mouthed a 'thank you' to which she just gave him an encouraging nod. She was on his side. She believed he could do it. And he did. Using Florence's faith in him as a catalyst, a day later when Y/N had gone on her run with Adam, Harry had excused himself and joined the two.

Adam was thrilled to the bone, but he was also competitive, so after ten minutes of trying to persuade the woman to run faster so he could beat his previous time, he took off on his own, with a promise of meeting up by the shore. That’s when Harry grabbed Y/N by her bicep and stalled them both, confusion written all over her features.

“I uh,” he started. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

“I – “ he stuttered taking in a deep breath. “I – uh – and you have zero obligations to respond, but uh – I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date with me sometime?”

That made Y/N do a double-take. “You want to go out? On a date? With me?”

“Ye – yeah.” It was uncertain how the word came out, but it felt so good to say it. “Yes, I really do.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head looking at the ground with furrowed brows. “Sorry’s just, kinda hard to believe it.”

“ ‘Nd why’s that?”

“Well because the first time we met, I looked like a sweaty mess, the second, I could barely function around your friends and co-workers, and now, well now I look like a sweaty mess again.”

“So?”

“I just –” Y/N laughed but waved him off. “Never mind.”

Fear instantly took hold of his core at her statement, so he rushed to salvage what could be salvaged. “No, I mean if you don’t want, you - you don’t have to say ‘yes’. I’m not gonna be upset or any –“

“Harry!” This time Y/N placed her hand on his shoulder to stop his ramblings. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”

“You – you would?”

“Yes.” Her smile blinded him like the golden rays of sun which broke through the overcast sky. “I’d like to very much so.”

But it was Y/N’s tearful huff, a storm cloud compared to the warm light from his memories, which brought him out of the fond thoughts and into the icy right now.

“Because unless it revolves around Harry Styles, it doesn’t matter, right?” she let out a pained laugh. “Because unless he’s there to have all the spotlight on him, it’s not important. Unless it’s not something he wants to take part in, it immediately needs to be cancelled or rescheduled because god forbid someone made plans without him.”

He grunted in disagreement. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

“No,” she snapped, snatching her purse and coat. “I get it. Very clearly. I’ll show myself out.”

“Don’t be so dramatic!”

She scoffed, glaring at him. “Call me when you get your head out of your ass.”

The door slammed shut, and Harry sat down onto the sofa to scream into a pillow.

***

Y/N’s sight was blurry as she drove down the street. A light snow had started to fall over London, so she was twice as careful, knowing Londoners had zero clue how to function when snow hit, and no one had winter tires.

“Fuck,” she choked out, wiping away at her cheeks.

She’d had fights with Harry before, it wasn’t like they were perfect. From the outside they looked like nothing could ever be wrong, but they were human. They had flaws and tempers and ideas and beliefs, and sometimes they clashed, but it’d never been as bad as it was that night.

She loved Harry, Y/N truly did. She’d even had dreams of the two of them in some far-off cottage in the Italian mountains living a domestic life, but she also just wanted one night to herself. To let loose and think about her own needs and wants, while Harry was away doing the same. It wasn’t selfish, not in her mind.

It’d been her who’d uprooted her whole life to be closer to Harry, not the other way around. She was always the one cancelling and making new plans with her family or friends just so she could spend a spare second with Harry. She was there for his sleepless nights and there for his knock-out concerts. Why couldn't he let her have this one thing?

She was sitting by the wheel at a red light taking in deep breaths to calm herself down.

The light turned green, and her hand was slightly shaking as she changed gears.

Y/N released the clutch and pressed down on the gas.

Two lights came rushing from the side.

She gasped.

A sharp pain went through her side.

And then it was all black.

***

Anne was going to rip Harry a new one, as she rang him for the fifteenth time, but he still didn't pick up. After the accident and the nurses being unable to contact Harry, they obviously called Y/N’s parents which were next on the emergency contact's list, but given how they lived outside of the UK and the next flight was only in four days, they immediately reached out to Anne, begging for her to go be with their daughter while they got there.

“And please tell Harry to fly over as well!” Y/N’s mum had cried. “I – I know he has work, but please.”

Anne had been shocked to hear Y/M/N ask that, having assumed he was already there, but she wasn’t going to let them get to Harry before she set him straight herself.

In the beginning, she’d been kind of sceptical, but after spending an evening together where Y/N, her and Gemma all did wine baking, and it had ended up in a disaster in the kitchen with the three of them crying from laughter while Harry stood at the entrance completely baffled and just so done with them, Anne knew Y/N only had good intentions with her son.

Anne’s love for her only grew from that point on, when she also realised just how much Y/N’s love language was giving. It wasn’t the kind of ‘hey, look, I bought you some fancy thing, now love me’, it was ‘hey, I saw how much you wanted this, I noticed how much it’d mean to you, and I love how happy it makes you. And if it reminds you of me, that’s just a bonus’, and Anne couldn’t help but become as protective of Y/N as her own kids.

But at that moment, as finally, after her twenty-seventh attempt, Harry picked up with a gruff ‘ ‘ello?’, Anne was about to burst with rage.

“You get to the hospital right now!” she hissed into the phone.

“What are you talking about?” There was a tremble in his voice.

The thing was, for two days since Y/N had stormed out, Harry’d been feeling sick. He thought it was due to the stress from the fight and from the pressure his label was putting on him, but now he understood it wasn’t that. It was his instinct telling him something bad had happened, and at Anne’s words, the bad feeling that’d settled in his stomach made his blood run cold. “Mum, what’s wrong?”

“Y/N was in a car accident, and you didn’t bother to pick up your phone.”

“I –” He stammered unable to process her words. “What? Mum? No…”

“You’re her emergency contact,” Anne spoke. “The hospital tried to call you a billion times, and you didn’t pick up.”

And that’s when he remembered all of those calls from unknown numbers. He thought they’d been some crazed fans who’d gotten his personal number, so he’d just blocked them. “Mum, no.” Harry choked out. “I didn’t mean to – we fought – mum…”

“She’s at St. Helen’s. Please get here.”

He immediately ended the call, and in the span of twenty minutes was at the hospital, which Anne was sure to scold him for because there was no way in hell anyone who didn’t speed would be able to get to St. Helen’s in less than forty minutes. The second she saw her son burst through the door, tear tracks down his face, all the anger and disappointment vanished.

“Where is she? Is she alive? Y/N!” he yelled across the hallway. “Where is she? Mum! Where’s Y/N?”

“Gem.” She patted her daughter’s knee as both of them stood up from where they’d been sitting at the chairs outside the recovery room assigned to Y/N. “Get a nurse, please.”

Gemma didn’t need an explanation or reasoning seeing Harry’s wild eyes, erratic breathing and shaky hands.

“Mum!” He practically sprinted after seeing the woman, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Calm down, Harry,” she shushed him, pulling him in for a hug and feeling his whole body tremble. “Calm down, it’s alright. Gem’ll get you some help, but you need to breathe.”

“I – I’m not the one who needs help!” Harry pretty much screamed. “I need to know if my girlfriend is alive.”

Anne spoke in a calm voice as to not agitate him even more, and her heart broke at the sight of her son so utterly broken. “Harry, you’re about to have a panic attack, and you’re no use to Y/N in that kind of state.”

“So.” He took in a chocked back breath. “So she’s alive?” He didn’t know what he’d do if the answer was anything else but a resounding ‘yes’. There was no version in his brain of where his life could possibly lead but down if he had to go on without Y/N.

“Yes,” Anne nodded, smoothing his hair away from his face, and watching as he took in a deep breath of relief. “She was just wheeled in for her second surgery. Should be out in about four hours. ”

All over again his insides froze. “Second? Mum, tell me the truth – how bad is it?”

“Harry, this is routine,” Gemma put a reassuring hand on his shoulder having returned with a nurse behind her, the man keeping a close eye on Harry and his behaviour. “They did as much as they could the first time, but their priority was on the worst injuries. This one is just to set things properly.”

“Set everything right like – “

“Like bones and stuff…” Gemma shuddered, trailing off. “Y/N broke her hip, dislocated her kneecap, her ankle was shattered and she fractured her collarbone. They took her in so that the bones could be properly placed together and there’s a lesser chance of complications not only while healing but later on in life. But can you please sit down? So they can help you as well?”

“I – alright,” he conceded, taking a place on one of the stiff plastic benches, as the nurse came to him, took his pulse, gave him an inhalator just in case and some herbal tablets to help him relax a bit.

“You said they focused on the worst injuries.” Harry looked at his mother. “What were those?”

Anne sighed, leaning to sit back on the chair next to him and ran a hand through his hair. “A piece of debris punctured one of her kidneys. The bleeding was pretty intense, but they say it was salvageable, so she’ll still have both of them. Gem donated some blood.”

“Thank you,” Harry whispered, looking over at his sister who wiped a stray tear away from his cheek.

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to thank me for. Y/N is family. If she’d lost the kidney, I’d give her mine in a second.”

“The worst they’re worried about is the head injuries,” Anne said. “Luckily, she got away without anything major, but she definitely has a concussion and minor whiplash to her neck, so they want to keep an eye out for any side effects that could arise. They have another surgery scheduled for her in a week if recovery goes as planned. To take the stitches that won’t dissolve out and put in the ones that will.”

Harry sagged against his mother’s side, her palms soothingly running up and down his back. “She’s gonna be alright, love,” Anne muttered in his hair, pressing a kiss to his temple. “She’s strong. She’ll be okay.”

It was comforting for both of them – for Anne to have her youngest in her arms, to know he was safe and sound, and for Harry to be held by his mother, the person who always knew how to comfort him when times were rough, and at that moment, they were the roughest they’d ever been.

“You’ve got some nerve to be here.” Adam’s seething voice pulled Harry away from his mother’s embrace and watched as he rounded the corner with a coffee cup. He was quite sure he was keeping his temper well in check from how hard he was gripping the Styrofoam cup. “Fucking ignore her for two days while she’s laying in the hospital, and appear when it’s convenient for you? Is she some fucking toy for you to use when you want?”

Anne’s tone was consoling and pleading. “He didn’t know.”

“The hell he didn’t, he just didn’t want to know! They called you!” Adam pointed at the nurse’s desk. “And you let them go to voicemail. And then, better yet, you fucking blocked the number.”

“I didn’t know it was the hospital,” he weakly defended himself.

“Because you didn’t bother to find out.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that. And not that he really could think of anything when the surgery ward’s doors swung open and they watched as a nurse wheeled Y/N’s gurney back inside the room, while another wheeled her saline bag along with.

It was a terrifying sight to see. Her face was basically nothing but a swollen piece of flesh, bruises and scratches littering her cheeks, a neck brace to keep her head from moving while one leg was wrapped in a full-on cast, the other in one up until her knee and her left arm was in a sling.

He’d had nightmares about her before. Most of the times it was about Y/N leaving him because she could no longer do it, could no longer commit to the hectic lifestyle that came with Harry, and as he screamed, banging on the invisible window that separated them, she just walked away, his sobs carried by the wind in the other direction.

“You should go inside,” Anne whispered motioning with her head to where the nurses checked the monitors and how stable Y/N was. “I know you had a fight, but she’ll want you to be there when she wakes up.”

“How,” Harry gulped back the lump that’d risen in his throat. “How do you know? How do you know she doesn’t want me to just disappear? I wasn’t there when she needed me, I was – “

Anne put her hand on his cheek. “Because when she woke up yesterday morning for the first time, you were the first person she asked for. You. She wants you there. And it’s the least you can do for her.”

He nodded, then took a deep breath and entered Y/N’s room. Watching her lay in the bed, unmoving, without her usual grumpy features as she slept, made Harry sick to the stomach so much so, he thought he’d have to call back the nurse.

It was some twisted version of Sleeping Beauty, yet he knew a true loves kiss wouldn’t awaken her. Y/N just laid there, small breaths making her chest rise and fall, not even a flutter of her eyelids.

Harry had spent countless night watching her sleep, looking at how her lashes fluttered as she dreamed of something; how her forehead creased and small, incoherent noises passed her lips as she talked to someone in her mind.

Now, he was surrounded by none of that, only artificial reminders that she was still alive and fighting to get better.

With uneven steps, Harry made his way to the chair which’d been stationed next to her bed (he was convinced beyond belief that Gemma, his mum and Adam had all taken shifts to sit there, to be there for Y/N), and much like a king who knew he was unfit for the throne, Harry had to swallow a lump as he took the seat.

“I – I don’t know if you can hear me…” Harry took hold of Y/N’s palm and let out a sob of relief when he felt it was warm, not cold like he’d feared. “But I’m here for you. I’m not leaving. Not unless you want me to, so until you wake up…” there were so many words, so many apologies he wanted to say, but kept them at bay. Y/N deserved to hear them when she was conscious, so instead, he said, “I’m here, lovie. Get some rest, I’ll be here…”

With that he put his head on the side of her bed, twisting his face so he could look up at her, watch her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, and fell asleep to the sound the beeps of Y/N’s beating heart.

While he slept he dreamt again, the same terrifying dream of Y/N leaving, only this time she did look back at him, but her face was all wrong, her neck bent in a way it shouldn’t be, and eyes covered in a milky white.

“You weren’t there, Harry,” she said in a voice void of emotions. “So why should I be there for you?”

Harry was 100% sure if he’d been hooked up to a heart rate monitor while he slept, people would think he was going into cardiac arrest, but it sure would’ve shown it flatlining as his green eyes swept over his lover’s frame to check his nightmare hadn’t become a reality, only to be met with two Y/E/C sparkling orbs looking back at him, giving him the softest gaze in the universe.

“Hey,” Harry’s tone was quiet, afraid to bring even the littlest of discomfort to Y/N given her state, and he had to physically restrain himself from sweeping down to bring her in a hug.

What he saw on her face made his heart leap to his throat, as she smiled, genuinely happy to see him, lifting up her right hand, the only limb without a bandage on to cup his cheek. “Hey, love.” Her voice was scratchy like nails on a chalkboard, but to Harry, it was an absolute symphony. “Are you alright? Your eyes are puffy. Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“Fuck,” Harry choked on his tears looking up at the white ceiling before back at her, complete disbelief in his blood-shot eyes. “You’re the one lying in a hospital bed, with casts and bandages all over you, scheduled for a third surgery, and you’re asking me if I’m alright?”

If Y/N could, she would’ve shrugged as if that wasn’t the most self-explanatory thing in the world. “I’ll always want to know if you’re alright. ‘S not exclusively you that can care for people, you know.”

And there she was – his sarcastic, allergic-to-kiwi-but-‘Kiwi’-loving girl that never ceased to amaze him, as she made sure everyone else was alright before herself. And that made Harry break down.

“I’m so sorry Y/N. So fucking sorry. I – god – I – there are not enough words in any language to say how fucking sorry I am. I should’ve been here, should’ve never let you leave. This is all my fault.”

Through all that, through his choked back sobs and crying, Y/N’s hand had steadily remained on his cheek, wiping away the tears from underneath one eye before switching to the other side and making the little pearls of hurt disappear with just her touch.

“Harry, are you the weatherman?”

That was not what he thought she would say. “I – what?”

“Do you control temperatures and have not told me?”

“N – no?”

“Were you the guy who ran the red light?”

“No.”

“Then how is this your fault?”

“I – “ he stammered. “I shouldn’t have let you leave. I should’ve gone after you, found a way to make you stay or – or should’ve fucking stopped being so selfish and driven you to see Adam yourself.”

“Harry, had you tried to make me stay nothing would’ve changed.” Y/N sighed letting him lean into her touch, as she bit her lip, thinking over her words. “I was just so pissed, that I think anything you would’ve tried to do, would’ve only made it worse. And I’d rather be here with you than alone in my apartment crying in a tub of Hagen Dazs because of a broken heart.”

“You-you've got your priorities completely backwards.” He wasn’t laughing when he said that, but Y/N was.

“Maybe.” She raised her eyebrow. “But I don’t think so. The bones will heal, but the amount of love I have for you… I’m afraid you’ve ruined the thought of a future without you in it. We’ll talk,” Y/N swallowed hard. “We need to talk, but when I get better. Right now, I just wanna hold your hand and have you hold mine as I try not to kick the nurses trying to take my blood for tests.”

It felt inappropriate for Harry to smile, to feel happy about how Y/N hadn’t told him to go screw himself, even though he felt like he deserved it, but fuck was it impossible not to when his body felt so light, and her love chose to invade the dark corners of his mind to fill it with golden warmth.

She fell asleep not long after their small conversation, body too tired and in need of recovery, but like he’d promised, he was there for her when she awoke again, this time to a more familiar Y/N as she glared at the coffee cup in his hand, while he sipped, a ring clad palm gently pushing away strands of Y/H/C hair from her face.

“I hate that you can drink coffee.”

“Yeah, and why’s that?”

“Because I can’t.”

“I’ll happily buy you as many coffees as you like. Once you get better and are allowed to, of course.”

Y/N snorted and then winced as the action caused pain to shoot through her body. “Knowing you, it won’t be a cup of coffee or a coffee machine, but a fucking coffee chain restaurant.”

“Would it be that bad to own one?”

Her eyebrow rose at him in an incredulous look. “You know I can’t bake. Coffee shops include pastries, and I’m not the one who worked in a bakery. I can cook, I can clean, but make me make muffins from scratch, and I’ll set your house on fire.”

“You already did.” Harry laughed. “Gem and mum helped.”

“They supplied the wine, so I’m putting 60% of the blame on them.”

“You do realise that equates to 30% of the blame on each of them, and most of it is still on you?”

“Shut up,” Y/N smiled, weakly pushing against Harry’s arm, but the motion made him happy to know she was trying. “I was just in a car crash, so forgive me for not being that great at division.”

A knock at the door made Harry look up, Y/N not even attempting to turn her head to see who’d interrupted them, given how the first time she’d tried it with the neck-brace, it’d hurt so bad she’d passed out.

Her doctor was a man in his mid to late fifties with greying hair, Y/N’s medical record file slapped underneath his arm.

“How are we doing today?”

“Better than yesterday, I guess,” she responded.

“Well, you were out for most of it, so I’d say so.”

Y/N and the doctor chuckled, but Harry didn’t, as he thought of how bad, how absolutely tired a person has to be to sleep for a whole day. He’d had those days himself, and that was from being exhausted from work. He couldn't imagine what being in a bloody accident would feel like.

The doctor stepped forward a bit and extended a hand to Harry, introducing himself as Dr Tate, while Harry rose in his seat to accept it, but not wanting to move away an inch from Y/N.

“You must be the boyfriend.”

“I – uh – I can only hope I still am,” he let out a nervous giggle, which made his girlfriend slap his arm, a furrow on her face.

Dr Tate looked Harry over from head to toe, eyebrow raised at that, but all he said was, “We tried to contact you, seeing as you’re Miss Y/L/N emergency contact, but the nurses said it couldn’t go through.”

“He was filming overseas.” Y/N butted in, clearly having rehearsed what to say beforehand. “Flew over as fast as he could. I’m the luckiest person in the world.” Her tone was soft as a feather, but Harry’s stomach felt like it was filled with rocks.

“Is there anything I can help with?” he asked hoping to be given some sort of a task to do, to allow him to redeem himself some way.

“Well, actually yes. One of the injuries Ms Y/L/N sustained was a concussion,” the doctor said, “which could lead to some complications like headaches, migraines, spotty vision or amnesia.”

“Amnesia?” Harry wanted to vomit. It had crossed his mind, but having a professional say it made it all so much worse.

“Yes, and we’d need someone to be with her as much as possible, 24/7 would be desirable, to keep an eye on.”

Harry honestly hadn’t heard anything past the amnesia part, mind spinning in a circle that just screamed ‘she’ll forget all about you’.

“It’s nothing to worry about too much.” Dr Tate was quick on his feet, seeing Harry’s blank stare, and tried to diffuse any possible spiralling. “With Y/N’s cognitive abilities and having repeatedly excelled at the test without a single stutter, it’s very unlikely she’ll have those side effects.

“But it’s still a possibility, right?”

The doctor nodded, giving Harry a kind smile. “Which is why I’m informing you of it. To keep an eye out to see if anything changes so you could come in if necessary. But as I said – Y/N’s memory has proven to be intact so far. And I always say to trust the facts.”

“Harry,” Y/N placed her hand on his. “You know I won’t forget you.”

“I’ll uh, give you two a second.” The doctor exited leaving them alone, an almost sad silence over both of them.

“God I almost lost you to some idiot running a red light with no winter tires, and now you won’t remember me. And – and even with everything you’re going through, you’re still trying to protect me? Why did you lie? I – I wouldn’t have cared if you said the truth that I was an asshole.” Harry dragged both hands over his face, trying to keep the cry’s at bay as Y/N ran her hand through his hair in an attempt to calm him down.

“I’d prefer to think,” Y/N shrugged trying to tease him and make him crack a smile, “me being dead would be the worst-case scenario, not me forgetting you. And of course, I’ll protect you. Your reputation matters to me. Just because we had a fight doesn’t mean I’ll immediately run to everyone I can and say how shitty of a person you were in those specific ten minutes.”

But Harry’s lips didn’t quirk up, the tears didn’t disappear as the painful grimace on his face wasn’t replaced by the crow lines next to his eyes from smiling so much. “What if you – what if you forget you love me? What do I do then? I know I sound selfish and like the biggest fucking dick, but as pathetic as it is – I can’t go on without you. I don’t know how I could.”

Y/N’s heart broke at his words because if the roles were reversed if Harry forgot about her and fell out of love, she didn't know how she'd survive. She’d had those fears before, when he was away filming and she couldn’t follow; she’d been terrified because what they’d had was so new, he could easily move on, find someone better, someone who was familiar with his lifestyle. But any time those thoughts came to her mind, Y/N reminded herself of what she’d do. And that’s what she told Harry.

“Then you make me fall in love with you again. You’re great at that. Make me love you more with every passing moment.”

“And – and if you don’t fall in love with me again?”

Y/N shook her head. “Impossible, Harry. You made me fall in love with you after barely two hours spent together. And well, if you put your mind to it… who knows how much deeper I’ll fall.”

For the first time in two days, Harry leaned down and pressed his lips against Y/N’s. The kiss was soft and sweet, a barely-there touch, but it meant everything. It was a promise to one another to love unconditionally, to remind the other of it at every passing moment; it sealed their future to be spent together, and neither wanted it any other way.

Harry’s phone rang, eliciting a whine from Y/N as he pulled away to answer it. “It’s Florence.” He pecked her lips one more time. “I’ll just tell her to call back.”

He turned to the side for a second muttering a soft ‘hey, can you –‘ before whatever Florence told him made him pull away and extend the deivice towards Y/N.

“It’s for you.”

“For – for me? Florence is calling me?”

Had the two women become friends? Yes. But didn’t mean Y/N had an easier time not fangirling about her.

“Hi, Flo,” she breathed out, looking at Harry with wide, happy eyes. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

Harry sat there watching as his love talked to someone she looked up to, and someone he cared about. He hadn’t told Florence, but her encouragement meant the world to him, as she was partially the reason he’d gotten together with Y/N. After all, she’d been the one on his side from the very beginning.

Y/N giggled like a crazy person after the call ended and she handed Harry back his phone. “Florence Pugh just called to give me well wishes.” She gasped looking at Harry. “Do you think Chris Pine will too?”

“God, I love you,” Harry laughed with her, pressing their foreheads together.

They’d be alright, they’d make sure of it. No matter if a disagreement arose, egos needed to be put in check or black ice covered the roads. They’d get through anything.

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take):

Everything tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @bnhvrdy @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl @sj-thefan @teenwolflover28 @lestersglitterglue @im-squished

Harry Styles tags: @sarcasticallywitty15 @breezykpop @girlboss99 @harrystylesdoesntknowiexist @alliyjane @sirtommyholland

A/N: Listen, Linda, those pictures of Harry on set does things!!!

Also the being allergic to kiwi - that’s me. Like legit it’s the only thing I’m allergic to. I always hated how they tasted like pain, like it made my mouth sting and feel like pins and needles before going numb, and according to professionals, that’s a sign of being allergic. But I love ‘Kiwi’ the song.

P.S. my tags are always open :)

P.S.S. I don’t take requests, sorry :(

#Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles fandom #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles x fem!reader #harry styles x reader smut #harry styles angst #harry styles and you #harry styles and reader #harry styles and y/n #harry styles fluff #don't worry darling #one direction #one direction imagine #1d fan fiction #1d

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hermannsthumb · 3 years

Note

Town council Hermann vs Alien Conspiracy Newt please!!!

THIS WAS FUN!!! inspired both by this tweet and conversations abt a newt/herm AU of that tweet with @k-sci-janitor (who also thought of the funniest sign newt made in this fic, aka the cheekbones one, and what his tats should look like). this is long sorry :/ gets a little spicy towards the end but nothing worse than a high pg13/light M

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The evening of the weekly town council meeting, it pours like nothing else. Which Hermann figures is really quite appropriate. Loathe as he is to soak his trouser legs, trudge through the mud that used to be his front walk, and hold his umbrella for so long his arm aches (for the community center is a mere half-mile walk away that Hermann can't justify substituting with a bus), he can't imagine council meetings happening in any other sort of weather. In fact, they rarely tend to; their dreariness seems to be a necessity, part of the preparation, as if to put everyone in as miserable a mood as possible.

Hermann hates council meetings. He supposes he'd be more sympathetic towards the plights of his constituents—if one can call one's neighbors constituents—if he'd wanted the damned job in the first place. As it is, he feels a bit like he was conned into it. Hermann had been a lowly physics professor at the local community college, passionate about public education and funding for public education and all those proper sorts of things an educator ought to be concerned about, when he suddenly found himself seized with the idea of making a difference. So he ran for a head position on the council. And he won it. Only no one told him that the council deals a lot less with public education and a lot more with noise complaints, cul-de-sac bake sales, and raccoons in dustbins, which makes why he ran completely unopposed all the more obvious.

A fat raindrop explodes against the edge of Hermann's umbrella and splashes his glasses. Hermann grits his teeth and wipes them dry with the cuff of his sweater. Bloody meeting; bloody rain; Hermann just wants to go back home, and fix up a nice pot of herbal tea, and set a blanket in the dryer for ten minutes, and...

"Dr. Gottlieb! Hey, Dr. Gottlieb, wait—!"

A blur in an oversized yellow raincoat hurdles itself at Hermann from the stairs of the community center. Hermann considers pretending he is a different Dr. Gottlieb, one who certainly has no reason to know maniacs in raincoats, or maybe high-tailing it in the other direction. This is the other reason why Hermann loathes council meetings: Newton Geiszler.

The unfortunate thing is that Newton Geiszler was, at one point, a respectable academic type, and in fact one of Hermann's own colleagues at the community college. (Hermann only found this out after the fact—he does not make a habit of intermingling much with the biology department.) And Hermann does mean was. Around a year ago, Geiszler was asked to temporarily step down from his position after he suddenly and unexpectedly went off the deep end. He has not been asked to come back yet. And not without reason. "Dr. Geiszler," Hermann sighs. "I've asked you not to lurk about here like that. It's...unsettling."

"Sorry, man, sorry," Geiszler shouts. He stomps over and makes himself at home under Hermann's umbrella. Hermann's not sure how he's been managing to see anything, let alone Hermann approaching down the sidewalk: his glasses are completely fogged-up and rain-splattered. "Do you mind if—thanks, dude."

Geiszler flips his hood down. He’s short, only coming up to Hermann's nose, with stubble nearly overgrown to a full beard and a mess of wet brown hair. He shakes that hair now, like a dog, soaking Hermann in the process. Hermann growls. "I beg your pardon,” he says.

"Oops,” Geiszler says. “Sorry. Anyway, Dr. Gottlieb, I'm really glad I caught you, there are—there are some things I wanted to tell you about. Before the meeting. They're—hold on." He rummages around in the deep pockets of his raincoat and produces a damp notebook, which he begins to flip through frantically. "It's about—"

"I know what it's about," Hermann says. Geiszler fumbles to push his glasses back up his nose. "In fact, there are some things I need to speak with you about as well."

"You've seen them?" Geiszler says in a hushed tone.

Hermann scowls. "I certainly have.”

They first started cropping up in the forest around the little cabin Geiszler calls home. Then, like dandelions or bamboo, they spread fast and far—to the town commons, in the front lawn of the coffee shop Hermann frequents, in front of his house. Whenever Hermann dashes one down with his cane or hauls one off to a rubbish bin, two more only crop up in its place. It's annoying, frankly. As if Hermann doesn't have to deal with enough already.

3 ALIEN ABDUCTIONS IN ONE WEEK - WHEN IS THE COUNCIL GOING TO DO SOMETHING?, the new one sitting in front of the community center says.

It's better than last week's sign, Hermann supposes. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE - AND HERMANN GOTTLIEB IS BLIND TO IT.

"You know you need a permit for those, Dr. Geiszler," Hermann says. "Or, at the very least, the council's permission. They're a public nuisance."

"My signs are a public nuisance?" Geiszler shouts. Hermann flinches back. Geiszler may be compact, but if he doesn't have the shrillest voice on the whole damned planet. "Open your eyes, dude! A dozen people went missing last month! The only public nuisance is whatever's coming from—" He bites his lip and jabs his finger at the sky, as if saying anything remotely akin to outer space would suddenly send fleets of UFOs pouring down from above. "And you're just letting them walk right fucking in."

“I thought they were flying in?" Hermann says. He raps Geiszler’s shin with the end of his cane. "Do get out of my way, Dr. Geiszler. The meeting starts in ten minutes, and you're welcome to air all of your grievances then."

Geiszler is silent as Hermann ducks around him and ascends the community center ramp. For a moment, Hermann thinks he may have won this small victory, and then he hears the wet slaps of Geiszler's rain boots against the pavement behind him. "Really funny," Newton says. "Real fucking funny, dude. I bet it'll be just as funny when they come for you next!"

Hermann unlocks the door. Geiszler waves a stack of black-and-white polaroids beneath his nose. "I took these last week," Geiszler says, and begins flipping through them as frantically as he had his notepad. Each one is blurry and indistinct, like Geiszler snapped them through a gauzy curtain with shaking hands. Hermann's not sure what he's meant to be looking at. "The day that waitress went missing from the bus stop. And two nights after that—your neighbor, the one who went outside to let his cat in and never came b—"

"Enough," Hermann says. He pushes the polaroids away, knocking two to the ground, and Geiszler scrambles to pick them up before they're ruined. "Dr. Geiszler, it is undoubtedly tragic that these people have—er—vanished, as they have, but continuously insisting extraterrestrials had something to do with it, and furthermore—" Geiszler opens his mouth as if to argue, but Hermann raises his voice and pushes on. "—furthermore, that I'm meant to do something about it, is completely—well, it's unhinged, frankly. I'm not law enforcement. Or the mayor. Or bloody—NASA. What do you want from me?"

Geiszler stares at him for a long time. He pockets his photographs. "They're gonna come for you," he says, ominously. "Just like they did for me."

The meeting goes off as expected, which is to say, badly. Hermann gets shouted at by nearly everyone in town, many of whom blame Hermann and his presumed negligence for the disappearances over the past year as well (blessedly, they don't also blame aliens), though many more of them blame him for more trivial things such as the broken water fountain in the commons or the library's slow wireless internet. Hermann can't decide which is worse.

As it is, when the clock strikes eight, he's more than ready to go home. "Right," he announces, standing up and making a show of tidying his meeting notes. They're already tidy: Hermann's notes are always meticulous. He continues—rather quickly, in case someone gets bold and attempts to interrupt him, "Thank you all very much for such a, er, productive meeting. I'll make sure to pass along everything you've said to the appropriate people. If there's nothing else..."

Geiszler jumps to his feet. A few people groan; Hermann has a feeling they're just about as sick of him as Hermann is. "Um, yeah, actually, I want to add something."

"No," Hermann says. “Dr. Geiszler, please, we can talk—”

"When we were outside," Geiszler continues anyway, raising his voice, "you asked me what I wanted you to do. Well, I just want you to listen to me! That's all! I have so much proof—so much I can show you—and you won't even—!"

"Proof?" Hermann says. "Your rubbish photographs?”

"It's not just the photographs! It's other stuff, too! Like—" Geiszler lets out a long, angry huff of air, and actually balls his fists up at his sides. Hermann has never seen him so incensed, not even when he accused Hermann of being an alien himself during a council meeting last summer. "Look, just come to my house and I'll fuckin' show you. Or are you that afraid of being—I don’t know, proven wrong?"

Part of Hermann is convinced that if he follows Geiszler out to his isolated cabin in the middle of the woods, it'll be the last thing he ever does. At the very least, he certainly has no desire to spend more time with Geiszler than he's already forced to. Yet—on the other hand—Hermann does not appreciate the challenge, nor does he appreciate being made to look like a fool by the man who chairs the local paranormal society. "Fine," he snaps, and Geiszler startles in obvious surprise. "Fine, you wretched little man. I’ll let you show me whatever proof you think you may have, so long as you take every single one of those signs down."

"Um," Geiszler squeaks. He clears his throat. "D—deal?"

Hermann seizes his cane and thrusts his chair back under his table roughly. "Well?" he says to the rest of the hall, none of whom have budged since Geiszler began shouting his head off. He scowls at the lot of them. "The meeting is over. You can leave."

It's Hermann's job to shut down the building each week, so he waits for the very last stragglers to toss out their paper water cups, shrug on their raincoats, and file outside before switching off the lights and locking up. He finds Geiszler lurking by a rather worse-for-wear green VW Beetle at the curb, the hood of his raincoat flipped back up over his hair. Hermann desperately hopes that the car isn't Geiszler’s. He is Hermann’s ride home tonight, after all. "I took the signs down," Geiszler says in a rush. "All of the ones around here, anyway. I'll have to do the rest tomorrow." He jerks his thumb at the backseat of the Beetle, where Hermann sees a haphazard pile of some of the 3 ALIEN ABDUCTIONS signs. His heart sinks. The X-Files bumper stickers should've been a dead giveaway, really.

"Thank you," Hermann sighs. "Well, let's get this over with."

"The heat is busted, so you might wanna leave your coat on," Geiszler says apologetically when Hermann manages to squish himself into the passenger's seat. The floor is a sea of empty Dunkin' Donuts cups, stacks of pulp science (or, if Hermann were to be less kind, pseudoscientific) magazines spanning back at least half a decade, and a pin-littered linen tote bag filled to the brim with boxed Annie's macaroni and cheese.

"Uh, sorry," Geiszler says. "I had to run some errands earlier. You can just—toss that in the back. Yeah."

The ride is short but bumpy, and though the removal of Geiszler's shopping bag offers Hermann more leg room, there is nothing that can make up for his tragically awful driving and his tragically awful CD collection. Hermann almost bolts from the car when they finally pull up at Geiszler's ivy-shrouded cabin, so relieved to have made it there in one piece that he's all but forgotten that he must now spend the rest of the evening with Geiszler, too. He remembers soon enough: another duo of aggressive signs have been pounded into Geiszler's mossy front path, TURN BACK NOW - ALIEN ABDUCTION ZONE, and a rather good sketch of Hermann beneath WHAT ARE THOSE CHEEKBONES HIDING? "That one's from the summer," Geiszler says sheepishly, kicking down the latter with the toe of his boot. "I keep forgetting to take it down. I don't still think you're an alien, by the way."

"Er, thank you," Hermann says. "I suppose?"

"They wouldn't be that obvious," Geiszler says, emphasizing the they with a meaningful glance up at the night sky.

"Of course not," Hermann says.

He's not quite sure what he expected Geiszler's house to look like. Some sort of—conspiracy nutter's den, perhaps, with aluminum foil hats and deconstructed radios and elaborate photoboards full of thumbtacks and red string. Or the interior of his car on a larger scale, with empty takeout containers and crumpled up papers on every surface. He's...sort of right. There's a noticeable lack of tinhats, but there are plenty of (modestly-sized) corkboards on the walls and multiple coffee cups peeking out of a recycling bin. The rest is merely precisely what Hermann would expect from an academic in his 30s: books, and mis-matching furniture, and a sink of dishes begging to be washed. It's...a bit disappointing, frankly. Though Hermann is rather impressed with the sleek telescope angled in front of the back slider door. Impressed, and envious. It's a very nice model.

"Make yourself at home," Geiszler says, unzipping his voluminous raincoat and tossing it, along with Hermann's, over the back of a worn armchair. He's wearing a pair of torn skinny jeans and a band t-shirt that reveals his heavily tattooed, and deceptively shapely, arms. Hermann tears his eyes away and forces himself to sit down at one end of Geiszler's couch. "I'm gonna make us some coffee. Do you want any sugar or non-dairy creamer?"

"No, thank you," Hermann says. "I don't drink coffee this late. It'll keep me up all night."

"Well, I hope so, that's kinda the plan,” Geiszler says. He rolls his eyes. “The aliens never come before at least midnight. Soy milk or almond milk?"

Hermann thinks, briefly and longingly, of his nice warm bed, the blanket he intended to toss in the dryer, and the herbal tea he won't be having after all. "Almond milk?" he hazards.

Geiszler stares at him in evident disgust. "Dude, I was kidding. You know how bad that shit is for the environment? It takes, like, a fuckin' thousand gallons of water or something like that for one carton of almond milk. It's insane. I mean, I guess it's still less water than what dairy needs, but there are plenty of better options."

"Oh," Hermann says. Hermann drinks skim milk. "I'm sorry. Er. Soy milk?"

As Geiszler fixes them mugs, Hermann begins to poke around some papers scattered across the coffee table. One is a list of names and dates, seemingly random, Hermann thinks, until he recognizes (scrawled in purple ink at the very bottom of the page) that of the gentleman who disappeared from his back porch just down Hermann's street. When he recognizes another—a teenager who worked as a barista at Hermann’s favorite coffee shop—he realizes it must be everyone who's vanished from town in the past year. Another paper has the same dates repeated, though not alongside any names—rather, bizarre little phrases like circling lights and that sound again. "You found my notes," Geiszler says cryptically, and then thrusts a mug out to Hermann.

Hermann takes the mug. A logo on the side tells Hermann it was from some academic conference in California ten years ago. "What are they supposed to mean?" he says.

Geiszler snorts. "Uh, I thought it was kind of obvious. Look—" He sits next to Hermann, far too close, and points at the column of numbers on the first page. "These are the dates when people have been reported missing," he says, and then scans his finger over to the second page, "and these are the dates when I've observed extraterrestrial—or at least, unexplainable—activity overhead. See how they match up almost perfectly?

"Mm," Hermann says. He does not. "So—if I am to understand you correctly—you believe that a, ah," he takes the page back from Geiszler, "a 'weird swoopy sound' from overhead had something to do with that poor young woman disappearing from a bus stop last week?”

"It wasn't just a weird noise!" Geiszler exclaims. "I showed you the pictures. I ran outside when I heard it, and thank fuck I had my camera, because I caught those lights just as they were leaving. And then what do I find out the next morning? There was another abduction, at almost the exact same time I saw the lights!"

"Ten miles from here," Hermann reminds him. "It would've had to have been a bloody fast ship."

"Yeah, no shit, Hermann," Geiszler says. "They're, like, fucking—mega-advanced lifeforms. They probably have the tech to vaporize the entire Earth if they wanted. Of course it was a fast ship.”

Geiszler is still sitting awfully close to Hermann. He runs very warm, unlike Hermann, warm enough to make Hermann warm too—like a scruffy, tattooed, freckled furnace. Yes, freckled, for Geiszler has the lightest dusting of freckles across his round chipmunk-like cheeks that Hermann finds inexplicably charming. He wonders if Geiszler would notice him loosen his collar a bit, perhaps take off his sweater. He really is getting quite warm. "So, I was saying," Geiszler continues, and though he speaks almost directly into Hermann's ear, he sounds as if he's a mile away from him. "Waitress at bus stop—weird lights over my cabin—waitress gone from bus stop. The proof is, like, undeniable!"

"Indeed," Hermann says.

He undoes the top button of his collar. He hasn't touched his coffee yet—he wonders if Geiszler even cares. The tattoo on Geiszler’s bicep, some sort of space tentacle monster, stares back at Hermann. "I'm telling you, man," Geiszler says, "this is no joke. They're taking people, maybe even for good."

They're gonna come for you, just like they did for me. When Geiszler began spouting nonsense about aliens last year, he was not booted from the biology department right away. Mostly everyone at the college, Hermann knows, tolerated his eccentricities on account of his admittedly brilliant mind and popularity among the students. The final straw came when Geiszler's extraterrestrial delusions (for what else could they be?) reached a new level: he showed up to campus in his pajamas one morning, raving that the aliens were not only zooming about over his house, but had actually abducted him the previous evening. "You seemed to fare alright, though, didn't you?" Hermann says. "When you were—ah—taken? They even dropped you back off in time for work. Quite courteous, I should think."

"That's—" Geiszler begins to shake his leg up and down, nervous energy radiating up his body and through Hermann's. He spills some of his coffee on the carpet. "That was—that was dumb. I got lucky. I think I was one of the first ones, you know? Because the disappearances didn't really get bad until, like, a month after that? I was in bed—and, and it wasn't like how it is in movies, I wasn't sucked up in a giant beam of light or anything like that, one minute I was there and then the next I wasn't, I was somewhere...else. And—uh. I don't really remember what they looked like. I tried to—sketch them out, but it was like trying to remember a dream, all the specific details about them just faded once it was over. But, um." He rubs the back of his neck, and Hermann is surprised to see him blushing. "Well, if I'm being honest, I think I kinda freaked them out."

Hermann can't help but snort. "You what?"

"I'm serious!" Geiszler shrieks. "I freaked them out. I was just really excited about it all. Like, dude, come on, I was abducted by aliens. How fucking cool is that? I just kept asking a bunch of questions, like, are you gonna probe me? are you gonna take me back to Mars or Jupiter or, like, I don't know, fucking Gallifrey? do you even understand what I'm saying, how do you communicate? and then the next thing I knew, I was landing on my ass in the school parking lot. They must've been observing me like I was observing them, like, they maybe knew I worked there? Anyway—" He shakes his head. "I tell you what, I'm real glad I decided to not just wear boxers like usual to bed that night. That would've been really embarrassing."

Bombarded with the sudden mental image of what Geiszler usually looks like in bed, Hermann (feeling rather warm again) tugs at his collar and clears his throat. He has certainly seen more than enough for the night, and if his mind is straying to something as prosaic as what does Dr. Geiszler look like half-naked?, it likely means it’s time for bed. "Er, right. Dr. Geiszler—"

"Just call me Newt, man," Geiszler says.

"Newton," Hermann concedes. It gives him a private little thrill. No one calls Newton Newton; it’s always either Newt or Dr. Geiszler. "Newton,” he says again, “this has been a very—illuminating—evening, but it's getting rather late, and I think you ought to drive me home before—"

And then Newton begins to take off his shirt.

Yes, a small part of Hermann's brain whispers traitorously, yes, yes, yes, even as Hermann recoils and stammers out, "Newton, what—?!"

"Oh, calm down, I'm not coming onto you," Newton says. He drops his t-shirt on the floor and jabs a thumb at his chest. His bare chest. "See, look. Proof."

Hermann's not sure what he's meant to be looking at. The giant Godzilla tattooed over Newton's pectorals? The flying saucer tattooed above Newton’s belly button? Newton’s nipple piercings? Hermann thinks he understands what an overheating computer feels like, an influx of too much information with processors unequipped to handle it. "I," he says. Newton’s belly button is not pierced. Hermann’s not sure why he thought it would be.

"Look at my chest, dude!" Newton says, tapping his skin insistently.

It takes Hermann a great deal of effort to pull his eyes away from the nipple piercings. In the dead center of Newton's chest, spaced perfectly between his pectorals and right over the nostrils of Godzilla, is a strange, almost luminescent glyph of a language Hermann can't begin to recognize. It's raised from Newton's skin, more like a brand than a tattoo. And...well, when Hermann says luminescent, he really means it. The squiggle seems to glow blue. "This was on me the next morning," Newton says. "I think they marked me. Like you'd tag a lab rat?”

Hermann can't help himself: he reaches out and touches the mark. "Strange," he murmurs. Compared to the heat of Newton’s body, the glyph is quite cool. Frigid, in fact, like metal, and yet as soft as the rest of his skin.

He's close enough to Newton to hear the hitch in his breath when they make contact, and as he traces his fingertips over the glyph, he can feel Newton's heart pounding beneath them. Strange, indeed; Newton has been such a thorn in his side for so many months, and yet all Hermann wants to do now is touch even more of him. He trails his hand lower, down to the flying saucer on Newton's soft abdomen. Newton inhales sharply. "Um," he says. "Should—should I put my shirt back on?"

"Do you want to?" Hermann says.

"Not really," Newton says.

He stares at Hermann, eyebrows knit together behind his glasses, like he can't seem to make sense of him. His confusion is very much warranted; Hermann can’t seem to make sense of himself right now, either. Then, to Hermann's supreme annoyance, the pieces seem to click into place in Newton's mind, and he grins. "Oh, duh," he says. "No wonder. You wanna fuck me, don't you? That’s why you’re so obsessed with me.”

That would certainly explain the strange warm feeling that comes over Hermann sometimes when he thinks about Newton in the dead of night that he has, up until this very moment, attributed to bouts of temporary insanity and/or a latent murderous desire. Nothing so dramatic as all that, then—just regular human biology. Urgh. How disgusting. And for Newton, of all people. “Obsessed with you?” Hermann sniffs, desperate to retain some element of propriety even while he begins to tug at Newton’s button fly. “Newton, you have spent thousands of dollars on yard signs just to invite me over for a coffee.”

“Uh, yeah, and it worked,” Newton says.

He curls his fingers in the front of Hermann's sweater, thumbing over one of the buttons.

“Even when I thought you were an alien,” Newton says, “I still kiiiiinda wanted to fuck you.”

Delusional or not, Newton looks terrifically good with a beard.

"Wait," Hermann gasps some time later. "Newton, stop a moment—"

Newton pulls away from him, frowning. He pushes his glasses back up on his nose. "What is it?" he says. "Did I hurt—?"

But Hermann pats at his shoulder frantically, pointing beyond him at the back slider and the dark of the forest beyond that. Newton cranes his neck around. "Only I'm sure I saw something. Lights, or…” Hermann feels a small twinge of embarrassment. The night is dead silent, and dead still. “Well, now I'm not sure."

“You probably imagined it," Newton says. He slips back down to press a kiss at Hermann's jaw. “It’s too early to be them.”

Not even ten yet. Newton kisses behind Hermann’s ear. It feels very nice. "Yes," Hermann agrees slowly, his eyelids flickering shut. He smooths his hand up and down Newton’s back. "Yes, I suppose you're right." Newton’s stories must have left him on edge. Which is of course ridiculous, because they’re all a load of rubbish—there may be extraterrestrials somewhere out there in the great wide universe, but they’re certainly not swooping down and plucking up hapless test subjects from Earth, let alone their small town, every other day. Hermann has much more important things to concern himself with right now, like how it feels when he threads his fingers in the soft strands of Newton’s hair, or the sound Newton makes when Hermann digs his nails into his skin, or how wonderful kissing Newton is...

And, unobserved by both of them, the three lights hovering above Newton's cabin blink away as quickly as they'd come.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag

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kiirokero · 3 years

Text

Sit and Heal (JJK) (Teaser)

Pairing: Werewolf!Jeongguk x Witch!Reader

Summary: “You have scars, Y/n, both on your heart and on your skin. The one on your arm may be healed, but the one on your heart isn’t. Please. Let me lick your wounds,” Or: The wolf that visits you every afternoon is your shoulder to lean on as you realize it's time to learn to love and trust again, even if it’s hard.

Word Goal: 10k+

Approximate Release Date: Beginning-Mid May

Note: If you wanna be tagged when Sit and Heal comes out, just comment or message me :) Also, I was literally so anxious to post this, I’m so worried people will think it’s trash :)

“Go home. You have others waiting for you, don’t you?” You spoke, and the wolf turned back towards the forest, where the trees grew thicker and the brush became more unforgiving. Again, the wolf looked towards you for a second, before it ran into the thicket. Gone. Its presence seemingly no more than an apparition. You felt like you met a ghost.

“Goodbye...”

Meow

“No, Yume,”

Meow

“No, bub”

Meoooww

“Yume, it’s raining. We can’t go outside,” You scold the cat who is currently eyeing you while you prepare supper for the night. You caught a chicken the other day, so you were happily making some chicken soup. Or you were trying to, if it wasn’t for the black cat who was currently whining his heart out next to you. “You’ll get snatched up by that wolf if you go out there,” You playfully threatened.

Yume grumbled out an annoyed mew, already familiar with the wolf you met and had previously rambled to him about the exact day you met it. It’s been about 3 days since your first run-in with the chestnut-colored wolf, and everything's been relatively normal. You did your daily spell work, foraged until the days turned to night, checked your snares with hope in your heart.

And you never saw the wolf again.

But life goes on, and you’re hungry.

Meow... You sighed, dejected, tired of explaining to the cat that it’s cold, wet, and dark outside. Not the best weather for outside time. Meow. You put the spoon that you were stirring the soup with down, turning to the black furball with your hands on your hips. “Alright, out,” You groaned, shooing the cat away from the kitchen towards the living room. “It’s warm here, your favorite kind of temperature. Just lay down until dinner, okay? I’ll even put more wood on the fire,”

You did as you promised as Yume begrudgingly got on the couch, still boring his green eyes into the back of your head. You grabbed some wood from the stack that laid next to the brick fireplace and threw it in. You flicked your wrist causing sparks came flying out towards the wood. The flames revived energetically, painting the living room in a serene orange glow, illuminating both you and the black cat behind you.

You dusted off your hands, turning around to give Yume a kiss on the forehead. “Maybe tonight we can do a tarot reading for the two of us, yeah?” You bargained, earning a content meow from the cat. You chuckled, scratching behind the familiar’s ear before you went back to the kitchen.

The rain furiously beat against the windows of your small cottage; the wind howling as it whipped against the old wooden boards. The house creaked and groaned under the power of the storm, but you knew your protection charm wouldn’t allow anything to happen to the cottage. Luckily, there was no thunder booming or lighting running bright white cracks in the dark grey sky, it was just the rain and the wind.

You were humming the tune of a folk song you remember your mother singing as you chopped up some carrots and plopped them in the soup, unaware of the cat that was currently sneaking towards a window. Yume jumped up on the windowsill, expertly avoiding the terracotta pot filled with different herbs and flowers. The window was unlatched. An error on your part, but a perfect stroke of luck for Yume.

Yume bumped the window open, causing the shudders to catch in the wind and bang against the wall. You jumped, dropping the spoon into the pot, splashing the soup around the stove and onto you. You hissed at the feeling of hot soup on your cheekbone, but ultimately ignored it, turning off the stove and walking back out into the living room.

An icy chill met your skin as you entered the room, causing your skin to rise with goose bumps. You shivered. The fire was now a low ember and the curtains furiously whipped around in the harsh wind, rain seeping in and dripping onto the floor. You groaned, realizing that you probably forgot to latch it. “Just my luck,” You sighed as you closed and latched the window, turning to go tend to the fire again.

That’s when you stopped mid-step, swirling around to look at the couch, noticing a lack of a Yume. “Yume?” You called out into the quiet house. No answer. Yume was a cat. It wasn’t like he was going to say “Hello” back, but he would come if called. Nothing. “Yume!” You shouted, a bit more panicked. Again, no sign of the furball. Quickly, you rushed through the house, checking every room. You looked under your bed, behind the dresser, under blankets, everywhere. But there was no Yume.

Anxiety seeped into your veins like viscous tar, clogging up your lungs and throat. “Y-Yume...?” You choked out, your mind and heart running a mile a minute. You felt tears well up in the corner of your eyes. They burned as they ran down your cheeks. You sat down on the couch, covering your face with your hands as you tried to calm your breathing. With each inhale you choked, coughing with trembling lips.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Yume probably went outside. He’s a smart cat, it’ll be okay,” You whispered to yourself in a shaky voice, taking in a few more gulps of air. You willed yourself up on trembling legs, stumbling over to the coat rack. “It’s okay,” You sighed out once more, throwing on your raincoat and boots, stepping outside into the ferocious storm.

Wind licked the wet trails of your tears as rain battered against your body. Trees bent over to the will of the storm, looking ready to snap, as their leaves rustled together producing an eerie symphony that made your hair rise. The sky was void of any light from the stars or the moon, covered in a thick layer of intimidating grey clouds. “Yume!” You called out into the night, desperate to see any sign of the lean cat. Nothing again.

You continued to call for Yume, walking deeper and deeper into the dense forest. It was getting darker the further you walked away from your cottage, making it hard to see the sharp stones and slick moss that covered the muddy forest ground. You reached into your pocket, fishing out the amulet that you always had on hand. It glowed. It didn’t give off light like a flame, but was enough to light your way.

The amulet let out a soft green hue as you continued to call for your cat, voice progressively getting more desperate. “Yume! Please!” You shout with a trembling voice, the biting cold and gripping fear threatening to push you down to your knees.

Meow!

You gasp, whipping around in a circle, trying to spot the source of the noise. You felt dizzy as you continued to turn, straining your eyes to peer through the thick trees and bushes. “Yume!” You yell again, continuing to turn in circles. “Yume! Please... Baby please,” You cry, bending to the will of your aching heart, falling to your knees. The wet, sloppy mud seeped through your pants. The rain splashing dirt on your face. But you couldn’t care less. “Yume...” You sniffled.

Meow

Yume called back, his call sounding just in front of you. You looked up, expecting to see just your little black cat with his green eyes and soft fur, but what was actually in front of you threw you into a living nightmare. You froze, your heart dropping as you hyperventilated, lungs burning from the cold. You couldn’t move. Your eyes locked onto the scene in front of you, like a cruel form of torture.

There, Yume was hanging by his scruff, in the mouth of a giant wolf.

“Yume!” You shrieked, finding your voice again. You reached out for the black cat, shying away when you registered that a wolf was right there. “Nonono, Yume, please...” You lamented, covering your mouth as sobs threatened to bubble their way out of your throat.

But instead of the wolf dropping a dead carcass at your feet, it gently let Yume down, allowing the cat to run over to you and lick at your tears. You sniffled, reaching out a shaky hand to pull Yume towards you. You buried your face in Yume’s fur, letting out the sobs you were desperately holding in.

Yume let you hold him in the chilling rain, licking your face to comfort you. “You’re okay... You’re okay,” You choked out, hiccuping on air. Mew... Yume spoke up, nudging his sopping wet head against your cheek, as if saying, “It’s okay. We’re okay” Even if in your brain you knew everything should be fine now, that you should stop crying and get back home, you couldn’t move. Your tired heart chained you in place like a rock sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

It felt as if all the strength you were fiercely clinging onto while you wandered though the forest had slipped between your fingers like sand. You wanted to lay there in the mud and stay there until morning, but you knew you had to get yourself together. Yume was shivering, you were shivering, and it was dark. Yet you couldn’t move. You sheltered Yume inside your coat as you tried to pick up the scattered pieces of yourself, .

Whine...

You lifted your head from where you buried it in the wet cat's fur, catching the eye of the wolf you’d forgotten all about. It looked at you with drooping ears and a bent head, like a scolded puppy. It whined again, lifting one of its paws like it was going to step forward, but opting not to, hesitating. “You found him,” You whispered out, voice scratchy from the sobs that had wracked through your throat.

The wolf tilted his head in confusion. You would’ve too. Why are you talking to this animal like their Yume? Yume was special in a witchy way. He was your familiar. Like a loyal companion, but sassier. Yume was in tune with your emotions 9 times out of 10. Yume played around with you when you were happy, snuggled you when you were tired, and comforted you through times of panic and sadness. Yume understood you because he was made for you.

A wild wolf wasn’t

Yet, that didn’t deter you as you continued to speak. “Thank you...” You sniffled. You took a closer look at the wolf, looking it up and down. The same golden chestnut fur, now soaked and illuminated in a hue of green from the amulet that currently laid in the mud. Despite the lack of light, its yellow eyes seemed to glow. “Ah, you’re that wolf that was stuck in my snare...” You said, and the wolf took your friendly tone as an invitation to get closer.

Slowly, it approached you, ears and head still down to look less intimidating. You were too emotionally exhausted to be scared again. That, or you subconsciously trusted the wolf more than you thought. “You must be cold,” You commented, staring at the wolf saturated coat. The wolf nudged at your own soaked coat, as if saying, “You too,” and you softly chuckled. It nudged you again, this time on your side, trying to get you to stand up. You didn’t. You couldn’t find the energy too, but the wolf kept nudging.

You gradually stood on trembling legs out of annoyance, tiring of the wolf’s persistence. You held Yume in your arms, still under your coat, as the wolf tugged at your dirty pant-leg. You took a step forward, and the wolf went on ahead until it realized you weren’t beside it. It jogged back, pulling on your pant-leg again. “You’re a weird one,” You mumbled out with a small smile, indulging the wolf by following it.

The wolf led you through the rain and mud. Looking back occasionally to check if you were still there. You didn’t know where it was leading you, but the trees thinned out, meaning you were moving away from the thick parts of the forest that are easy to get lost in. The storm continued to beat down on the three of you, creating a thin veil-like fog that hindered your ability to see.

But the wolf seemed unfazed as it continued to walk without fault, walking until an orange glow pierced through the fog. Your eyes widened when you realized it was your cottage. The wolf had led you back to your cottage. “Wha? How did you...?” You breathed out, looking down at the wolf who was now looking at you.

The wolf was definitely odd. It seemed more aware than the average lupus, like it could hear and understand you. Like it knew what you needed. Strange, no doubt, but you were a witch, you experienced strange things all the time. Hell, the entire forest you lived in was renowned for being supernatural and “dangerous” as in, magical.

Birds often brought you pretty stones and flowers, the squirrels liked to share their food with you, and the plant life seemed to come alive around you. Nothing in your life was “normal”, it was all strange. The wolf was probably like the birds and squirrels. A forest helper of sorts.

So with that rationalization, you left it be.

You walked up to your porch, opening the front door and letting a wet Yume free in the house. You turned around, locking eyes with the wolf once again. It was a few yards away, sitting in your front garden, looking even more humongous next to your tiny daisies and tulips. It was waiting for you to go inside. “It’s cold...” You said, “And your wet...” The wolf tilted its head once again, unmoving. “I have towels... And a warm place to sleep until the morning,”

The wolf stayed seated.

“Come on,” You coaxed, patting your leg as an invitation for the wolf to move closer.

Slowly, the wolf stood up, trotting up to you and cautiously stepping into the house.

“It’s okay, they can’t hurt you anymore,”

“Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean the scars don’t burn,”

Out Now!

#jungkook #jeon jungkook #jeongguk #jeon jeongguk #bts jungkook #bts #bts fic #bts werewolf au #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jeongguk x reader #jeon jeongguk x reader #bts fluff

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hoboal87 · 3 years

Text

Storm

Title: Storm

Pairings: Dean x F!Reader, mentions of Sam x Eileen

Characters: Dean, F!Reader, minor mentions of Sam and Eileen, unnamed OFCs

Word Count: ±2.1k

Warnings: anxiety, car accident, major injuries, angst, fluff, blink and you’ll miss it pre-smut, post 15x19, more spoilers will be in the tags.

A/N: Requested by a nonnie: “Hi sweetie, I adore your writing especially dean fics. Can I pleaaase request a flangsty one shot of dean x reader where they get into a car crash and she's the one who's badly injured?? And maybe they are stuck in a snow storm or something so help would take forever to come and dean is just trying to keep her alive? With lots of worried and gentle dean?? But I don't want her to die pleaaase 🥺🥺 thank you so much. And no pressure if you don't want to write it ❤️”

A special shout-out to @deanwinchesterswitch for taking time during her #BlogAppreciationBounce to beta this for me! Thanks Kym, you’re the best!

My Full Masterlist

My Dean Masterlist

Tags are open! Tag yourself here!

Have a request? Send me an ask or DM!

You walk through the aisles of the grocery store, pushing the ever-growing cart in front of you. You and Dean had finally moved all of your belongings into your new home, and now you needed to stock it full of food. Dean is like a kid in a candy store, grabbing so many unnecessary items that you can only shake your head and suppress your giggles.

A thunderclap from outside makes you jump slightly; spring in Kansas, a woman just a few feet in front of you notes, you politely smile as she suggests stocking up on bottled water and canned goods. When you were living in the Bunker, severe weather wasn’t even on your radar. It was a fortress, with all sorts of magic protecting it. But now, you and Dean are living in an ordinary, run-of-the-mill house, and Kansas is smack-dab in the middle of tornado alley.

Dean meets you at the checkout counter, two pies in hand, and you give the cashier a small smile. Another thunderclap makes you jump, and Dean immediately wraps his arms around your waist, calming you, reminding you that it’s just a little rain. Thunderstorms had made you anxious ever since your family was attacked by a wendigo when you were a teenager. Every storm dredges up memories of you and your family fighting for your lives as the creature used a storm to hide in the shadows and the sounds of thunder to cover its inhuman screams.

Rain begins to fall as you load bag after bag into the trunk of Baby, empty now that Dean has retired. A large bolt of lightning strikes, brightening up the sky, making the heavy, dark clouds visible for a moment.

As Dean pulls Baby out of the parking lot, rain has begun falling; scattered droplets softly thumping on the roof of the car. You and Dean live away from town, out in the middle of nowhere, your closest neighbors being Sam and Eileen, owning the property next to yours, but their house was still being built, so for the time being, it was only you and Dean for nearly five miles. It didn’t seem like a lot of distance when you first chose the property; in fact, you originally wanted to buy both pieces of land so that you and Dean could have all 10 acres to yourselves.

Dean drives past the Gas n’ Sip, the closest business next to your home, and turns down the road that would eventually lead to your new house. The five-mile distance shouldn’t seem like a lot, but now, as the rainfall becomes heavier, you wished you’d chosen a home closer to town.

The thick, heavy rain makes it almost impossible for you to see anything more than a few feet in front of you. You take a long, calming breath, trying to keep your nerves intact as lightning strikes again in the distance. Dean notices your nerves starting to get the better of you and reaches over to give your knee a reassuring squeeze before bringing the car to a stop.

“You wanna wait out the rain?” He asks, taking your sweaty palm into his own.

“Food’ll spoil,” you counter, trying to cover your growing nerves.

“S'just food, sweetheart,” Dean unbuckles himself and slides closer before reaching over to do the same to you. “We can get more tomorrow.”

Dean wraps his arm around your shoulders as the storm seems to grow even stronger. He places a gentle kiss on your lips and reaches to the back seat, grabbing a blanket to cover you both. Under the worn blanket, Dean’s hand rubs up and down your thigh, inching closer to your covered core. This wouldn’t be the first time that Dean’s tried to get frisky in the Impala; hell, not even the third or fourth but with your anxiety running on high, the last thing you want is to fool around.

You don’t have to say anything, just gently intertwining your fingers with his and he seems to get the message. You curl up against him, basking in his familiar warmth and smell, praying that the storm would soon be over. Your heart thumps rapidly in your chest as the wind howls with enough force to cause the Impala to rock slightly on the road.

After you’ve calmed, Dean suggests heading on home. You nod slightly, wanting nothing more than to crawl into the comfort of your bed. He slides back over before shifting the car into gear and slowly starts accelerating.

Pain. Cold. Wet.

Steam rises from Baby’s engine, and thunder claps again. The last thing you remember is a horn honking and Dean slamming on the brakes before everything went dark. Your body lies limp on the hood of the car, glass shards from the windshield surrounding you.

The Impala’s front end is crushed, and the heat from the engine warms you as you try to piece together what happened. You can hardly focus on anything; there’s another car a few yards away; it must be the one you collided with. You try to move your body, but it’s then you realize that you can’t feel anything below your waist. You groan as you desperately try to move, hoping that you can will yourself onto your feet and find Dean. You can barely make out a low moan through the sound of the rain hitting the metal. You want to turn, but you can't; pain radiates throughout your body, at least the parts you can still feel. You try to call out to Dean, to anyone for help, but you can't find the words to do so. Your brain and mouth aren't connecting, and the only sounds that you manage to make are whimpers of pain.

A figure appears in the rain, cursing as he seems to take in your broken figure; he's almost yelling at what you can only assume is some 911 dispatcher.

"Shit.. one of the passengers…conscious? The driver? I'll try…"

The man appears at your side, and you can still see the phone attached to his ear.

"Ma'am? Can you hear me?" He asks cautiously, you want to nod, but you're too afraid to move your head, afraid that you could accidentally hurt yourself further. "Her eyes are open; she's breathing," the man relays into the phone. "Uh.. ragged. There's blood… Ma'am? I'll try that. Blink if you can hear me."

You slowly but deliberately blink your eyes. The man breathes out a sigh of relief.

"Y/N!" Dean's voice comes from through the broken windshield. The man hurries away from you and towards Dean. You can only make out the muffled noises as the man tries to convince Dean to stay inside Baby, but you know he won’t; he’s too stubborn to listen to anyone.

The rain begins to let up, and the man tells Dean that an ambulance is on the way. The sound of Dean’s boots on the wet concrete put you at ease, knowing that he’s, at the very least, in better shape than you are. You count the strides that Dean takes before he’s beside you, frowning slightly at the large gash on his forehead. Dean’s eyes rake over your body, and you know something is going on that neither man is telling you.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Dean’s hand gently cups your cheek, and you know that he’s trying to keep his voice steady. “Help’s comin’ baby, okay? You’re gonna be okay, y’hear me?”

You try to mumble a response, but the words still don’t form. The rain is now nothing more than a sprinkle, clouds shifting to reveal the night sky. Numbness has taken over the rest of your body as Dean keeps his eyes focused on you, assuring you over and over again that you're going to be okay. Off in the distance, you can hear a siren, and Dean squeezes your hand tightly as he tells the man to grab two flares from the trunk.

“Help’s almost here, Y/N.”

“De,” you barely manage to mumble out, “’m tired.”

“I know, baby.” Dean looks relieved at the sound of your voice. “Gotta stay awake, Y/N, please. Y’can’t go to sleep, baby, not until help gets here. Promise me you’ll stay awake.”

“Love you,” you murmur as your eyes close, and every breath becomes more difficult to take.

“Y/N, baby, I need you to open your eyes,” Dean begs as the siren grows closer. “Please, honey, just a coupla minutes. Please Y/N, you have to fight for just a little while longer; lemme see those pretty eyes, baby.”

With all the energy you can muster, you slowly open your eyes, focusing on Dean as he breathes out a sigh of relief. His face is wet; whether it's from the rain or fallen tears, you can’t be sure. Dean offers you a pained smile before leaning forward to press a gentle kiss on your forehead.

Red and blue lights illuminate the sky, and a handful of overlapping voices fill the air. A paramedic replaces Dean, who refuses to leave your side until a firefighter drags him away. Your vision blurs as the new person begins quickly examining you while another puts a brace around your neck. A team of paramedics turns you over, and slides a board under you before lifting you off the hood of the Impala and putting you onto a stretcher. You can barely register what’s happening around you, and you want to cry out as they load you into the ambulance.

The collar around your neck keeps your head facing up, and you try desperately to look for Dean. Your eyes frantically search from side to side before Dean comes into view. He reaches forward, and you feel the familiar calloused hands rubbing against yours. Voices are flying, asking Dean question after question; is she allergic to any medications? Did she lose consciousness? Any prior existing conditions? Blood type?

Your hearing becomes muffled and your vision becomes tunneled as Dean struggles to answer each question.

“She’s seizing!”

A steadily beeping heart monitor awakens you. There’s a tube down your throat and you’ve seen enough Dr. Sexy to know it’s a breathing tube. You cough as you try to breathe and the heart monitor’s beeping becomes more rapid. A nurse is in the room quickly, telling you to keep calm before calling someone else in to help remove the tube. She orders you to cough again and again until the tube is out.

“D’n?” Your throat sore and raspy from the tube being down your throat for who knows how long. “‘Ere’s D’n?”

“He’s gone home, Y/N,” the nurse, Rebecca, tells you calmly. “Visiting hours ended a while ago. We’ll call him as soon as we get you a work-up.”

“S’okay?” You hate that your brain and mouth aren’t working together, and you can only speak in half-formed words. Rebecca nods, smiling as she takes your vitals and calls for an orderly. “How l’ng out?” You struggle to ask, but she seems to understand your question.

“Six months.”

Hours later, you’ve been poked and prodded by too many doctors to keep count of. Words may take a few days, but you’ll get them back, a neurologist assures you, just keep practicing.

By the time they’ve returned you to your room, Dean is there, eyes glistening as Rebecca wheels you in. You want to stand up to meet him, but your limbs, like the rest of your body, don’t want to cooperate with you. Dean crouches down to meet you, the skin on his forehead slightly red from where you remember seeing the gash. He leans forward and presses a kiss on your lips.

“Missed you, sweetheart.”

Dean and an orderly help you back into bed, and he takes a seat in the chair next to you, taking you by the hand and rubbing the back of your palm gently. A team of doctors explains everything to you and Dean—that you’ll have a long road of recovery, you’ll need physical therapy for your limbs, you’ll most likely need a speech pathologist, but with hard work, you’ll be back to your old self in a matter of time.

“You’re very lucky, Y/N,” one of the many doctors says as the others clear out of your room. You let out a scoff, you’ve been in a coma for six months, and you’re lucky?

“Honestly, I’d call it a miracle,” he remarks before leaving, and for a moment, you swear his eyes flash red.

Feedback is appreciated!!

#dean winchester #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester angst #dean winchester fluff #saileen #car accident #minor sam x eileen #twist ending #yellow eyed demon #pre-smut #anxiety

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aggravatetheaxe · 3 years

Text

BO SINCLAIR X READER - Waffle House Pt. 1

You're a server at the south's greatest and best-loved institution: Waffle House. The graveyard shift can be tough, but you can usually find ways to entertain yourself. Turns out tonight's entertainment is named Bo, and he wants to know if you're on the menu.

I wrote this especially for my friend Zin! This title is SAFE FOR WORK. Pt. 2 is NSFW (and in Bo's POV!)

Soundtrack: Diner Ambience ; Rain ; Faint Hard Rock

Words: 3,269

Part 2

Part 3

Masterlist

***

READER POV

It was raining when he came in, a light rain that tapped on the windows and made you want to leave your shift at Waffle House early to crawl into your warm bed. He was just some guy—average, white, brown hair, blue eyes. And yet you felt compelled to watch him as he tapped his dripping boots against the door and shook out his hat.

Wow.

You were new to the overnight shift. It was mostly truckers coming up and down the interstate, guys who just wanted to tuck into a warm meal and leave. They tipped well, too, so you didn't mind. It wasn't like your sleep schedule wasn't fucked anyway. May as well make some money while you were up all night.

This was the first time you'd had a physical reaction to any guy who'd walked in. You completely forgot about the orange juice you were in the process of putting away. You could feel your heart race as he gazed around the restaurant, and when his eyes found yours and he flashed you that grin?

Wow.

He took a seat at the breakfast bar, right in front of you, like he could sense your pulse quickening. "Evenin'."

Right, you were supposed to greet him. "Hi, there. Can I getcha some coffee?"

"That'd be real welcome, [miss / sir]." His crow's feet wrinkled, and he set his hat aside on the counter. His twang sounded so good mixing with the classic rock pouring from the speakers that you had to bite your lip to keep from sighing. "Sure is comin' down out there."

"Yeah," you agreed with a breathless laugh. God, did you sound stupid? You turned quickly, retrieving a mug and the fresh pot you'd just finished brewing. "How do you like it?"

"If you bring me the fixin's, I'll do it up," he said easily. When you turned and handed him the mug, his eyes found your chest, staring at your name tag for an extended moment. Then, his gaze crawled to yours. "Y/N."

Your face was so hot you wondered if he could see you blushing. Rather than say anything stupid, you practically shoved ramekins of creams and sugars at him, then mumbled some excuse or another before disappearing into the kitchen.

Pressed against the wall, you took a few deep breaths. You saw a hundred men every shift, some of them quite handsome, and yet this guy was standing out to you. Why, you had no idea, but you had a table of college kids to wait on and three other people at the counter ... you couldn't be fixated on this one person.

The cook glanced up at you, then did a double take, frowning. "You okay? Look like you're about to pass out."

Worried your Average Man had heard him, you cleared your throat and announced, "I was just getting some straws," before grabbing a handful and exiting.

You shoved the straws in your apron, trying to avoid eye contact with the man ... but as you poured refills and took orders, you found it hard not to glance over at him. He was just sitting, enjoying his coffee, but every so often, you could feel him watching you from the corner of his eye.

You knew you couldn't put off talking to him for long. You had to take his order, after all, and he'd been patient. As you walked back to him, he looked up, smiling brightly. "Welcome back."

"Thanks." Why were you thanking him? Jesus Christ, you sounded like an idiot. "Ready to order?"

He laughed a little, carding a hand through his slightly damp curls. "Once you give me a menu, darlin', I reckon I won't be long."

"Oh, sh— shoot." You scrambled to grab him a menu, slapping it down in front of him. "Sorry. It's been a long night."

"No worries." As he flipped the menu open, he nodded to his coffee cup. "Can I get some more a that, sweetpea?"

"Of course." Man, you were really fucking up this serving thing tonight.

By the time you'd grabbed the pot and refilled him, he'd set the menu down and was ready with two white packets between his fingers. He tore them both open in one motion, then looked at you, smirking. "Extra sugar. Don't tell."

Shit, you can have all the sugar you want. But your mouth was not half as dirty as your mind, and so you just smiled back, trying so hard to keep from giggling. "So, what'll it be?"

"I'll get the, uh ... Texas bacon patty melt with hashbrowns."

"Sure. How you want those hashbrowns?"

"Just plain. Actually, make 'em smothered. Oh, an' a side of biscuits 'n' gravy, please."

"You got it." You jotted the order down quickly and passed it through the kitchen window, readying yourself to move on to the next customer for your own sanity.

But it was the man's voice that drew you back to the counter: "Hey..."

You turned. He was about to ask you a question, you could tell from the tone of his voice. "What's up?"

"I'm not really from around here." His smile was friendly enough, but his shocking blue eyes seemed almost calculating. "S'pretty late, an' I don't feel like sleepin' in the truck again. You know any good motels 'round here?"

It didn't even occur to you in the moment that he could be flirting. "Well, there's a Motel 6 not far from here ... a Red Roof a few miles down the interstate. Those'll probably be your best options in terms of good quality."

His expression shifted a bit, but then his smile widened, crow's feet wrinkling again. "All right. Thanks, sugar."

Sugar. You weren't new to being called that—you lived in the south, after all—but something about the way he said it...

You tried to get him off your mind the rest of the night, but it was kind of difficult. Even after he'd finished his food, he lingered, draining coffees and flipping through a newspaper someone had left on the stool next to him. He got up to go to the restroom a couple times, but besides that, he stayed planted right in front of you, where it was impossible to ignore him.

It was an hour and thirty minutes later that your shift ended. You gathered your things, and as you headed toward the door, you weren't surprised to find him still there.

For some reason, only then did his lingering presence give you pause. Why was he hanging around a Waffle House at 3 a.m., anyway? He'd said he wasn't from around here ... had he gotten kicked out or something? Chosen a direction on the interstate and just started going?

Poor guy. You bit your lip, going back and forth with yourself for a few moments before your pity won out. "Hey, sir."

He looked over his shoulder, forehead wrinkling.

"Um, you take care. Lindsey'll ring you up whenever you're ready."

He cracked a smile and waved. "Take care, darlin'."

You tried to ignore the way your heart fluttered at those words.

The sky was just beginning to turn the color of dusk, but it was still raining as you exited the restaurant and headed to your car. Your keys jingled as you wrestled them out of the pocket of your jacket. It took you a moment to find the keyhole in the driver's side door, squinting through the rain like you were.

The inside of the car was blissfully dry, and as you slammed the door and blocked out the pounding rain, you closed your eyes and pushed out a long breath. It was time to go home—have some dinner of your own, maybe some tea, then collapse in bed.

That thought finally moved you to put the key in the ignition and turn.

And turn.

...And turn.

Well, you were the only one turning, because the engine certainly fucking wasn't.

Dread crawled up your spine and gripped the back of your neck. What? How could something like this happen? You'd just paid through the nose for a ton of repairs and an inspection. How could your engine just...

Anxiety floated you as you climbed out of the car, braving the rain to look under the hood. But hell, you barely knew which one was the engine, let alone how to fix it if it was broken. Your hands shook as you fumbled for the hood prop, heat climbing your face and stinging your eyes. How were you gonna get this fixed? How would you even afford it? Below minimum wage and tips from truckers wasn't going to cut it.

You turned, leaning against the side of the car and taking your cellphone from your other pocket. The tears finally fell once you realized that you didn't have anyone to call. You slammed the hood of the car and covered your face.

"Hey."

The voice, raised over the downpour, made you jump. You'd been standing in the rain for a few minutes, sobbing your eyes out, and you were completely soaked through. The rain and the heat of your tears fogged your glasses so bad, you couldn't see who was there no matter how you squinted.

"Hey," he said again, much closer now. You recognized the twang.

Quickly, you grabbed your glasses off, wiping them against your shirt before replacing them. You could see the Average Man much more clearly now, watching you but keeping his distance.

"Hi," you managed, sniffling hard.

His face fell. In a few seconds, he was beside you, offering you a hanky from his back pocket. With a little mumble of thanks, you wiped your face and blew your nose. The hanky smelled like motor oil and musk. He was close enough for you to smell him, too, feel the heat coming off his body.

For some reason, that made you cry harder.

He clicked his tongue above you. "Why you cryin', darlin'? It's pourin' out; you're gonna get soaked."

"My ... my car," you managed, gesturing helplessly.

"Oh? Somethin' wrong with your car?"

"Yeah. And I don't know jack shit except the model and year." You vented your frustration in a hard exhale, wringing his hanky. "I just got it inspected, too."

The man paused for a moment. "Well, hey, I'm a mechanic. I could take a look if ya like."

You raised your head, wiping your glasses again. "I— no, it's fine. It's raining out, you don't have to..."

"I don't mind," he said dismissively, opening the hood with one hand and propping it up. "Pretty thing like you shouldn't cry like that."

Again, you found yourself staring at him. This man definitely gave off an ... energy, calling you pretty while fixing your car. For a stranger, he was certainly taking control of a situation he hadn't even been aware of a minute ago. You'd been well aware he was attractive and compelling, but this was a whole new level. You were so taken off guard you couldn't think of a response.

"Go ahead and climb in front," the man said, waving you that way. "Try 'n' start it when I knock on the window."

"Okay." You slid into the front seat again, waiting for his command. He knocked once, and you turned the key.

No luck. You hesitated before knocking back.

Another knock. No luck. After the third, he rapped on the driver's side window instead, and you opened the door for him.

He was soaked. His clothes were drenched to his skin, his hair curling wildly around his ears and forehead. "No luck, darlin'. Think your engine's shot."

You felt your face crumple, any hope you'd had now crushed. It was four-something in the morning. Where were you going to get a ride home let alone a tow truck? And then how were you going to pay for it all?

"You gonna be okay?"

His words shook you out of your reverie. Your chest felt cold and numb ... the beginnings of a panic attack starting to take hold. "I just ... I don't know what I'm gonna..." You clenched your hands, freezing and trembling, and inhaled shakily.

"Listen," he said after a few moments, glancing up at the sky. "It's real shitty out, if you'll pardon my French, an' I don't feel right leavin' you all alone out here..." He sighed, almost grimacing. "You want a ride? I can getcha home, you can rest an' make your phone calls in the mornin'."

Getting into a stranger's car ... it was the most stereotypical thing in the world, but you didn't see any way you could turn down the offer. He seemed nice enough, and if it came down to it, you could run if not defend yourself...

At this point, you'd risk anything to be somewhere warm and cozy instead of in this stupid, freezing parking lot.

"I don't want to ... inconvenience you," you said weakly.

"It's no bother." His smile tightened a bit. "I'd rather you say yes or no so I can get out of this downpour."

You slipped out of your car, shutting and locking it behind you. Hopefully it would be alright for the night. "As long as you don't mind, mister."

The man simply smirked in response, slamming your hood and heading for his truck. It was a beat-up Chevy in dire need of a paint job, but it was running, which was more than you could say for your own vehicle. He opened the passenger side door, then shut it behind you, hurrying himself out of the rain. The pickup's vintage interior smelled faintly of cigarettes as you slid into place, buckling in.

He swore softly as he climbed in beside you and started the truck. Heat blasted through the air vents, and you relaxed a little. It smelled musty and old in here, but the engine sounded good, and whatever problems there were were easily smoothed over by the handsome company and the rock droning from the radio.

"Name's Bo, by the way." He spared you a smile as he backed out of his parking space. "Only fair you know mine since I know yours." When you balked, he laughed. "Your name tag, remember?"

"Oh. Right. Duh."

The man—Bo—took it in stride. "You must be beat as hell, shift like that. Betcha can't wait to get home and curl up in bed."

"Yeah," you replied, giggling awkwardly.

Bo smiled. God, he was so pretty. "Don't blame ya. I'm dog tired myself. Do just about anything for a drink and a soft bed right now." A chuckle. "Guess I'll just have to settle for a beer and a motel mattress."

Again, you giggled awkwardly.

On the other hand, he wasn't awkward at all. In fact, he seemed perfectly comfortable carrying the conversation, as if he'd gotten the script before you and rehearsed his lines a thousand times. "So where'm I headed?"

"Oh, uh, take the next exit..."

You continued to navigate for him, but you were working from memory, your eyes barely on the road. You couldn't help but watch his hands as he maneuvered the truck. They looked strong and warm, with fine hairs near his wrist, and on his right hand, a signet ring glistened in the low light. When he stroked and squeezed the steering wheel, his muscles and skin shifted beautifully over his knuckles.

You kinda wished you were that steering wheel.

Eventually, the truck pulled up to your apartment building, engine purring as it idled. "This the one?"

"Yeah." You clutched your things closer and smiled over at Bo. "Thank you for this. Really, I don't know what..."

You'd been about to say I don't know what I can do to repay you, but the state he was in, it wasn't hard to guess what he needed. Not only was he drenched, but he looked half-dead with exhaustion despite that easy smile of his.

Even as you opened your mouth, you knew this was a crazy idea.

"Do you ... want to come in for a minute? I can at least get you a towel, um, and maybe some cash for taking you out of your way."

Bo paused. He had an expressive face—you could see him weighing his options. "What the hell," he sighed, giving a tight white-guy smile before cutting the engine. "Sure."

Your heart leapt. You had half expected him to turn you down out of politeness, but you supposed you had inconvenienced him. Excitement mixed with terror at the thought of having this man—a stranger—in your apartment. Alone with you.

But it was a little too late to back out now. You slipped out of the truck and led him quickly up the front steps, then the interior stairs to your apartment. As always, your building smelled like Second Floor's cats and First Floor's cheap weed. Bo only stood behind you, hat in his hand, nice and polite as he waited for you to unlock your door.

"Home sweet home," you said, laughing awkwardly as you stepped in.

Bo gave a cursory glance around the place but didn't seem to feel one way or the other about your decor, simply smiling at you. He sure did know how to make people feel at ease. This almost didn't feel like an insanely stupid idea.

"Make yourself at home. I'll go get a towel. Um, and I can get you a drink. What do you like?"

"I'm not fussy, but I'll take whiskey if you have it."

Your place was so small, you were able to carry on the conversation while you hurried to the bathroom and grabbed a fresh towel from the cabinet. "I think one of my friends left some behind the last time she was over. Wild Turkey? It's bourbon?"

"That'll do." When you brought him the towel, he gave you one of those dazzling grins in return. "Much obliged, darlin'."

God, you just wanted to stand there and take him in while he toweled himself off, but you forced yourself not to, instead going into the small kitchen and fetching the whiskey. You weren't much of a drinker yourself, but you'd seen your friends drink plenty, so you poured a couple fingers in a wide glass and brought it out. He had already made himself quite comfortable on your couch, leaned back, legs spread, arm across the back of it.

"I hope it's not irresponsible of me to give you a drink when you're gonna be driving," you said as you handed him the whiskey.

He chuckled. "Don't you worry about me. I've pro'lly driven worse off a thousand times." He threw it back in one go, and you watched his slightly stubbly throat bob as he swallowed smoothly. He practically moaned, "That's it," before wiping his mouth. Looking you up and down, "None for you, sugar?"

It took you a moment to find your voice. "I don't really drink much. Tastes like paint thinner to me."

That drew a laugh from him. "Sacrilege." Then a hum. "You don't have to stand there, y'know. It is your house."

Sitting next to him would mean his arm was practically wrapped around your shoulder. An edge of wariness was beginning to press against your thundering heart. This was such a terrible idea, for so many different reasons.

You approached slowly, lingering before him. The way he looked up at you through his lashes, body sunk into your couch, nearly made your mouth water. He lifted his glass slightly. "Think I'm good for one more ... if ya don't mind."

***

Part 2

Masterlist

#bo sinclair #bo sinclair x you #bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair x y/n #house of wax 2005 #slasher x reader #slasher x you #slasher imagine #bo sinclair imagine #written

144 notes · View notes

cozy-the-overlord · 3 years

Text

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Part 3 of Cozy’s Fluff-To-Angst Fun and Games

@fablesrose said:

Alright, break my heart.

A lover softly combing their fingers through your hair as your head lays in their lap, quietly drifting to sleep with a hum.

Summary: She could accept this fate, did accept this fate, if it meant that he would escape safe and sound. But Loki could never let her fall alone.

Word Count: 1,663

Pairing: Loki x Sigyn

A/N: So this is based on a dream I had a while ago ... it’s weird. I know it might not make any sense, but my dreams never make any sense lol, so I was kind of trying to channel that a bit. The title is from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”-- I debated about that for a while, because I know this story doesn’t really fit that poem thematically (like ... at all), but the atmosphere it creates is sort of what I was going for? Kind of? Idk this story is a trash fire.

Also please let me know what you think of the ending! I’m genuinely curious to see how people interpret it ...

Thanks for reading!

Warnings: Drowning? (but no death)

Tags: @lucywrites02 @silver-lupines @whatafuckingdumbass @the-emo-asgardian @imnotrevealingmyname @electroma89 @lokislittlesigyn @moumouton4 @theredrenard @justdontmindmetm

If you want to be tagged, feel free to send an ask/message :)

Read it on Ao3!

At first, she thought she was dead. That moment when she first hit the water, the icy crack that shattered her vision as millions of tiny needles pierced every sliver of skin and cut straight to her bones—surely, she must be dead. No body could survive such raw cold.

But she wasn’t. She was alive for now, alive enough to scream as freezing water rushed down her throat, up her nostrils, through her ears, ripping her apart from the inside until there was nothing left but ice.

Can’t breathe—

The surface sparkled above her with a mocking glow. She knew how to swim, but when she tried to kick her legs only dangled in the water, useless chunks of lead pulling her deeper and deeper with each failed flail. Her arms weren’t working properly. Her fingers had turned to icicles.

No, she wasn’t dead, but she was dying.

The thought electrified her, and she tried another half-hearted thrash for the surface even as her chest swelled with water. She didn’t want to die. Not like this. Somewhere, deep down, she was ashamed of her fear. She hadn’t fought the drop. She had given herself up to death’s eternal slumber. Why was she panicking now?

But this was different. She had made peace with the fall, yes, but the water did not hold the same mercy. Please. She gasped for the surface, not even sure who she was pleading with.

Please, not like this.

She wasn’t expecting an answer.

And yet one came.

In one moment, she was spiraling down into the blackness, in another, the light was flying towards her in a halo of bubbles, a familiar arm tight and firm around her waist.

Somehow, the air she heaved into her lungs was even colder than the water below, the frigid wind that whipped across her cheeks threatening to take her skin with it. She coughed out a waterfall, the panic that had been frozen in her throat finally freed from its floodgates as she sobbed and shook against his chest.

His.

Sigyn gagged on the realization.

“You—you—” But her voice only burned, too raw for speech. When she attempted to twist around to see his face, he only held her more tightly against him as he pulled her to the embankment. She pulled at his collar with numb fingers.

“You were supposed to run,” she choked. “Loki, you were supposed to run.”

Loki said nothing. He scooped her up like she weighed no more than a feather, his ruby eyes staring off at something only he could see as they trudged through the snow. She realized suddenly that she was shivering, teeth chattering like a pair of castanets, and she gulped as she tried in vain to hold her frostbitten hands still. Loki’s grip around her tightened.

“We need to get you warm,” he said. “You’ll freeze like this.”

What he needed to do was drop her and get as far away from her as possible, but Sigyn’s voice wasn’t working properly. Really, very little was working properly. Her vision was going fuzzy in the corners, the steady sound of his wet boots crunching against the ice was starting to fade into an indistinguishable buzz.

She only noticed they had stopped when the fire crackled to life—a vibrant, vigorous warmth that washed all over her, and she found herself bathing in the glow of dancing flames despite her better judgment.

“Loki!” she whispered weakly, fighting to cling to her last dregs of reason. “The smoke— he’ll find you—”

Loki lay behind her, holding her to his chest with a touch so gentle she barely felt it. His fingertips danced across her temples, stroking clumps of wet hair from her face as they went.

“You’re so beautiful.” His voice was soft and safe, a warm blanket wrapping her up and sheltering her from the world.

She inhaled. Her chest felt numb. “What’s going to happen?” She hated that she sounded so small, like a frightened child cowering at a storm. But surely what they were facing was a storm of its own? Sigyn knew very well who it was pursuing them. She knew he would stop at nothing to retrieve what he wanted.

It could only be a matter of time …

But Loki was unconcerned. “Don’t worry, darling,” he soothed. “Don’t worry. It’s all going to turn out right.”

“The tesseract—”

He hushed her gently. “Everything’s going to be just fine.” He hummed as he combed through her hair, a tune that Sigyn almost recognized, something innocent and nostalgic. It was something from a lifetime far away, dancing on the edge of her memory. She found her eyelids slipping closed, even as she fought to remain awake.

Can’t sleep now. Can’t leave him …

“It’s all right, my love,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “You can go. I promise I’ll be all right.”

And so, she gave into his words, and the world faded to black.

…

When they found him, the fire had gone out. Loki was hunched alone in the snow, watching little flecks of ice crystalize on his blue skin. He didn’t bother to stand as they surrounded his makeshift camp. Why should he? He was weary, and besides— it didn’t matter now.

The Mad-Titan loomed over him, his golden armor sparkling with frost as he regarded Loki with a kind of patronizing amusement.

“And so the Jotun blesses us with his true colors.”

Loki fixed him with a heavy-lidded stare, breath whistling through his lips in a silver vapor. He was too exhausted for words. Besides, what was there to say? Everyone here knew how this was going to end.

At least, they thought they did.

“I’m surprised at your choice,” Thanos grinned. It was a spider’s smile, one that said he wasn’t surprised at all. Loki pressed his nails into the palms of his hands. “I thought for sure you had chosen to run.”

Yes. Sigyn had thought so too, had wanted him to flee. He had seen in her eyes, that peaceful resignation as she accepted her fate.

As if he could ever let her fall alone.

Thanos knew it. That was the frustrating part. He knew Loki would jump in to save her or die trying. He knew he’d give up his life, give up the tesseract, give up every living creature in the universe if it meant keeping her safe …

It didn’t matter now. Sigyn was free from harm, far outside the Titan’s reach, and the tesseract …

“Hand it over, princeling.”

Loki only smirked. History may call him Silvertongue, but oh, sometimes silence tasted so sweet.

Thanos’ eyes narrowed.

They dragged him to his feet in an instant. Loki didn’t fight it. It was only a matter of seconds before the realization would strike, and he for one was enjoying the anticipation.

The Titan towered over him. Loki fought the urge to laugh. He clearly thought himself intimidating, but his tiny eyes glaring out from beneath his helmet only made Loki think of an overgrown cockroach wearing armor.

Still, he bit his tongue.

“I’ll ask only once more,” Thanos leaned towards him, practically spitting in his face. “The tesseract. Hand it over.”

Loki didn’t flinch.

“My lord—” It was one of his Children, hunched over a datapad with a molded tension in his shoulders.

Here we go.

“What?”

“It’s not here.”

“What do you mean it’s not here?” Thanos snapped. “He has it!”

The man inhaled a shaky breath. “Forgive me sir, but he doesn’t. Here—” He held the tablet to the Titan with trembling hands in frantic supplication. “It’s not on his person. It’s not even on this planet. There’s not even the slightest trace of its gamma signature on this side of the galaxy!”

Loki grinned.

…

She awoke in her bed, cocooned in the snug embrace of her favorite fuzzy blanket. The rain pattered on the roof outside, a soft hum that almost soothed her back into slumber. Still, she pulled herself from sleep’s clutches and yawned, stretching as she sat up.

Such a strange dream.

It seemed so distant now, all wrapped up in warmth. She could only barely recall the last dregs of icy panic, floundering in a frozen river. And the man who had pulled her out …

She chuckled to herself. If only every nightmare ended with a tall, dark stranger rushing to her rescue. Although memory of his face eluded her, she couldn’t forget the feeling of his arm around her waist, so strong yet so gentle at the same time, clutching her to his chest like it was his sole purpose in life to hold her close. She sighed. Her subconscious had been kind to her last night.

A loud yowling from down the hall startled her from her reverie—the cat, demanding his breakfast. She frowned at the clock and jumped when she realized how late it was. Oh well. Can’t spend all morning fantasizing about handsome dream-men. Time to get up.

There was a song stuck in her head, she realized suddenly. It took her a moment to place it. Some silly jump rope chant from elementary school that she hadn’t thought of in years.

She giggled. How obscure is that?

Another meow reverberated through the apartment, an impatient edge to the cry. She groaned, throwing back the covers.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming!” One of her slippers was missing from its usual spot. She frowned. “Tigger, did you steal my slipper?”

Tigger only let out another screech, and she huffed. That damn cat was always snatching everything she left out and stashing them under something—he was a veritable hoarder.

“Fine,” she yelled, making her way to the kitchen slipperless. “Be like that, you little thief—”

So distracted was she by the cat, she didn’t notice the faint blue glow emanating from the tangled mess of her bedsheets.

#loki marvel #loki fanfic #loki angst #loki x sigyn #loki x ofc #logyn #miles to go before i sleep #cozys fluff-to-angst fun and games #cozy writes

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