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maedaex2combo · 2 years

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More Than Pale

Chapter Two: When Feelings Go Unspoken

Post-retcon / Post-sburb

[CH 1] ==>

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Pairings: Dave x Karkat x Reader (GenderNeutral!Reader Human!Reader)

Warnings: Strong language, Alcoholism, Angst.

Word Count: 16.3k (itsmorethistimeimsorry)

Summary: After sobering up and getting your music career up and running again, you reconnect with an old friend from your tour. This causes more than a few issues between you and your two "platonic" best friends. Is it jealousy or is it for your well-being?

A/N: Holy shit I finally finished this chapter LMAO. God this took me forever y'all I'm so sorry. I'm literally in a foreign country right now for study but I'll be damned if I let that stop me (I only let it slow me down significantly). Anyways I was kind of struggling with what direction I wanted to take the story to get the boys to realize their feelings, but this is what I came up with! I hope it's good because I can't keep reading over this monstrosity of a chapter anymore. But we've got a new character and high high tension in this one. Sorry for all the angst! But it'll be worth it in the end ;) Enjoy!

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Lets get into it x2

It’s been a month!

A month of sobriety. A month of working on your new album. A month since the breakdown video, which ended up getting cleared up with both the public and your friends. The dinner with Rose and Kanaya was awkward, you’ll admit, but they actually helped with their advice about staying sober. The picnic with Roxy, Calliope, and Jade was helpful as well and encouraged you to spend more time with your other friends. All in all, you were doing a lot better now! You even wrote one of your songs about your journey towards recovery and self-love so far. In a livestream, you ended up crying at how supportive your fans were. Things were really looking up for you.

The album was maybe about halfway done now. At the moment you’re currently working on your track with Dave as a feature and writer. He’s been having trouble with his own writing, despite all his work being very good, as you continue to tell him. You think he’s just being especially hard on himself since he knows this will be largely produced and listened to by millions. You’ve been patient though, always, for him.

The room is scattered with papers, whole ones and crumpled ones. Really, this was not very eco friendly. You probably could’ve written in a tablet or something. All the tech though was being used for recording, beat making, mixing, etc. There's cords everywhere like a death trap. It’s a mess.

You’re reading over one of the verses for the thousandth time when Dave walks back in again with AJ and a water for you.

“so what do you think?”

“Dave. Every time I tell you it’s perfect! You’re the one who’s nitpicking.”

“yeah but if it’s perfect then why do you keep giving me feedback?”

“Because you insist!!!” You laugh a little at the ridiculousness of the past several hours spent going back and forth like this. You stand up and hand the paper towards him for the last time. “This is it, Dave. This is the final draft. I officially have no more comments.”

“but-“ he starts to protest.

“Nope!”

“ok just-“

“Nuh-uh.”

“dude-“

“No!”

He finally breaks out into a smile. “okay! okay. but just for the last line. I think that-”

“What was that?? I think someone’s calling me, I can’t hear you. One second.” He sighs as you clearly answer a fake phone call. “Hello? Who is it?… Oh my gosh, Barrack Obama???… Wow, such an honor to talk to you sir. To what do I owe the pleasure?-“

“hey. don’t bring him into this.” He says, but there’s still that little amused smirk on his face.

“Oh, what’s that? You read the copy of Dave’s verses I sent you? Thank you, sir! And what’d you think? Oh, wow…. Really??? You think it's THAT bangin?? That’s great! I’ll let him know!” Dave rolls his eyes behind his shades as you pretend to give Americas greatest president your farewells.

“thats not funny. identity theft is a crime (y/n).”

“You know what’s not a crime? Being confident in your bomb ass work. Seriously, why are you so anxious about it? You like your own music, don’t you?”

“of course bro. i write the fucking sickest raps on this planet.”

“Then why-“

“this is different. im not just posting this on my shitty little personal noisecloud account. this track might end up playing in every goddammed mall, cafe, club, and whatever else is on earth c. this is gonna be like- my own official debut. if i put this song out there on your album, its gonna be the whole planets first real look at my music. people are gonna search me up- and if it’s too good then theyll look at my old songs and be all ‘aw shit dude this guy actually sucks’. but if its not good then theyll just assume my music is ass and wont even bother-“

“Dave.” You cut off his rambling suddenly, taking a step closer to him.

“what??” He snaps, clearly stressed, as he whips his head around to look at you.

“It’s good. I promise it’s good.” You take one of his hands in both of yours. “It’s just as good as all your other music. I promise you. Your debut will be a huge success, I already know it. You don't have anything to worry about.”

It’s silent after that. He just stares at you for a while, and the assumed eye contact feels weirdly intimate after a moment passes. From your point of view, you think maybe you went too far. You just wanted to reassure him, but you probably made him uncomfortable. 'I really have to draw the line for this stuff somehow' You think. You start to blush a little out of embarrassment, and quickly let go of his hand to turn away and clear your throat. Not that that makes it any less uncomfortable.

From Dave’s point of view, well, he’s not even quite sure what he’s feeling. He's had these weirdly intimate moments with you ever since he found out you had feelings for him. Did he ever get this flustered around you before that? He cant remember. It’s a good thing that he doesn’t usually blush very much, because it must’ve been unnoticeable to you. He wishes it was unnoticeable to him too, the way his heart started to beat faster when you touched his hand and comforted him, and even faster every second your eyes stayed connected. It felt so nice, it left him speechless long enough for you to think he was uncomfortable. this is weird… this feeling… i have a matesp- boyfriend. so why do i feel-

And then you’re pulling away. And he shakes off the weird emotions he doesn’t want to address as quickly as they came.

“Anyways.” You quickly add onto that comically awkward cough as you make your way back to your own desk with your own writing. “If you want to keep perfecting it, that’s fine. But y'know that one saying… Uhh what was it… Don’t fix what isn’t broken? Right?”

Dave nods. “yeah i guess.” He replies as he goes to sit back down at his desk. Right before he can take a seat, someone knocks on the door of your workroom. You both know who it is of course.

Karkat opens the door before either of you even get to say anything. “HEY. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU TWO WHEN YOU’RE ‘IN THE ZONE’ OR WHATEVER. BUT SOMEONE'S AT THE FRONT DOOR ASKING FOR (Y/N).”

“Huh?” This catches your attention, turning your body in your chair to look at him. “Who is it??”

“NO FUCKING CLUE. HE SAYS YOU KNOW HIM.”

Your heart sinks a little, immediately assuming the worst. “Oh, shit. Is it one of the guys I’ve dated?? Tell them I’m not here!!”

“NO, (Y/N). UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, I THINK I WOULD RECOGNIZE THEM. IM PRETTY SURE IM SO TRAUMATIZED BY ALL THOSE DATE NIGHTS, THAT THEIR FACES ARE ENGRAVED INTO MY FUCKING THINKPAN FOREVER AGAINST MY WILL. BUT I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS DOUCHE BEFORE.”

Now you’re curious. And apparently your two friends are as well, when they follow you into the hall and quietly peak their head out from behind the stairs to see who the mystery man is.

When you open the door, you need to take a second to get a good look at him. He has curly black wolf-cut hair, and when he takes off his expensive-looking maroon shades, he’s got really well drawn black eyeliner on. You immediately recognize him now that you can get a good look at his face. He was one of your openers on tour! You spent a couple months together and he was really cool from what you can remember. You can’t believe you forgot to keep in touch! Then again, a lot happened for you.

“Rael!!!” Your face lights up and you excitedly pull him into a hug, taking him by a bit of surprise, but his smiles big when he returns the hug.

“(Y/n)! Hey! I missed you, dude!” The two of you pull back, grinning. “How you been? I saw all that stuff that happened last month and got worried. Thought I’d come check on ya!” Karkat and Dave share a confused glance with eachother.

You laugh a little, embarrassed that he had to read/see about that. “Ooohhh yeah… that was crazy! Haha.. But I’m doing a lot better now! I’m working on my next album!”

“I heard! I bet it’s coming along great.” He compliments, putting his hands on his hips. "Your tracks are always groundbreaking."

You blush. “Hahah.. Thanks! But yeah, it is coming along really well." You’re smiling bigger than you have in a while. It feels so good to see another artists from your tour again, brings back good memories, as exhausting as the trip was. There were people who made it worth it. “Would you… like to come in?” You suggest suddenly on a whim.

“Oh, that’s okay! I know you’re busy. I just thought I’d come by and say hello, since I was in the area.”

“Are you sure? I'd love to have you over for a while! Maybe I could show you what I’ve been working on?” You suggest, a little bashful. You haven’t shown anyone but Dave and Karkat your work so far. It’d be good to get another artists opinion as well.

“Hmm…” He takes a second to think, looking off to the side. “Well, alright! Since you insist!” He agrees suddenly, and the two of you laugh, chatting some more as he walks in alongside you into the house. Dave and Karkat go back into the workroom when they notice you coming in.

When you two enter to see them, Rael is the first to speak. “Hey! These must be the god-friends I heard you talk about so much!” He announces, and you blush a little. “Its nice to finally meet you two! The famous Dave Strider! I heard your beats are nice!"

"sup." Dave nods in resonse, his hands in his pockets.

He looks over to Karkat. "And uh… Wait don’t tell me… Kitkat?”

“KARKAT.” He sneers, immediately put off by this guy.

“Oh right! Haha, funky name.” He totally misses the aggravated response. Humans sometimes have a hard time with troll names, but it comes off as xenophobic if they don’t even try or apologize. It’s one of Kar’s many pet peeves. He only didn’t go off on the guy because Dave immediately took his hand behind his leg to calm him down subtly. You laugh a little awkwardly to fill the short, yet thick, following silence.

“and who are you?” Dave asks, melancholy.

"Oh right. Guys this is-"

“Name’s Rael! I’m a friend of (Y/n)’s. We were on tour together!” He cuts you off, but you don't think much of it.

“His music’s really good! I thought he could help us out a little bit. Maybe give us an outside view for editing purposes?” You smile, intentions good, totally forgetting Dave’s thing about privacy and how much he would and does think that's an awful fucking idea.

“im good.” Is his short reply.

“What? Dave!” You immediately retort.

“It’s okay, I can just take a look! I don’t have to give any real criticism if you don’t want it!” Rael offers, but Dave’s cold expression doesn’t budge. There’s a very tense air in the room right now. The silence unfortunately pushes Rael to continue his paragraph. “Hey, I get it man! Some people just can’t take it, I’ve had a lot of friends go off on me for-“

“yeah. really. im good.” Dave reports again, cutting him off in the same tense tone. “you two can knock yourselves out though. think im all written out for today anyways.”

Then he’s grabbing all his writings that he can see and walking out of the room. Karkat follows behind, not without his signature dirty look glaring directly at your friend. The door slams after him.

Yeah. They’re never really elusive or subtle with how they feel, are they? As much as Dave tries to be. This doesn’t surprise you, but you’d be lying if you weren’t a little upset. Also, it was a little bit out of character for Dave to be so cold to someone new. Why was he acting so weird?

“Well then!” You say, clapping your hands together and faking a smile, trying to forget that strange interaction. “Shall we get started then?”

You two spend the next several hours in the workroom. Every laugh from behind the door seems to vibrate throughout the whole house. The intense air followed the two boys into the living room where they’ve been biding their time doing whatever the hell they could think of. Mostly video games. Theres no real one set reason to why the events of today seem to put the two in a bad mood. Karkat of course didn’t like this 'friend' of yours based off first impression, but he doesn’t ever like new people honestly. He’s also just pissed he has to deal with him being in the house for this extended amount of time, even having to see him walk out to use your bathroom once. It was silently pissing him off. Or as silent as he can get, only warranting a few angry outburst rants to Dave saying things like “HOW LONG IS THIS ASSHOLE GONNA STAY IN THERE?” and “HE MIGHT AS WELL FUCKING MOVE IN AT THIS POINT.”

Dave on the other hand didn’t really have a problem with the guy, other than the way he greeted Kar earlier, which also set a bad first impression for him. He’s more-so annoyed with you, for suddenly bringing in a stranger and offering to share his personal work with him when you know- or should know- he wouldn’t like that. He was already struggling with the track, and now he can’t even work on it for today. But it’s whatever. (It’s not.) At least that’s the conclusion he’s come to.

Finally, after what feels like forever, at 11:48pm, Rael finally gets escorted out into the front hall. He says goodbye to your friends, which grants him what sounds like a muttered goodbye and a headnod without eye contact. (I’m sure you know who’s who.).

You hug him in the doorway and send him on his way, satisfied with how tonight went. Other than maybe one thing.

You walk into the living room and stand in front of the TV as to get your best friend's attention. They both look up at you.

“Hey… I’m sorry about earlier. I know what he said was maybe rude, and a little intense. But I promise he’s a cool.”

“YEAH RIGHT. THAT GUY SEEMED LIKE A SHITHEAD.” Karkat says immediately, sitting tucked into the corner of the couch.

“Karkat.” You frown at his never-failing bluntness.

“its cool. just maybe dont bring him into the workroom again.” Dave says from his spot chilling on the floor, looking at something on his camera.

“Why not?”

“because dude. i got my work in there too. you know i don’t want some random people seeing my personal feels-jam shit.” He says plainly, glancing up at you now.

“Okay, well, he’s not just some ‘random guy’, he’s my friend.”

“big emphasis on ‘your friend’.”

You sigh, moving forward to sit on top of the coffee table. “Okay, I’m sorry. I just thought maybe he could help you get inspired! If you gave him a chance, I'm sure you’d see he’s really great and you two would hit it off… Artistically, I mean.” You say the last part glancing at Karkat nervously. He didn’t care of course.

“maybe. but i just met the dude today.”

“AND HES AN ASS.” Karkat adds again, arms crossed.

“He is not. You’ll see. I’ll bring him over again and you guys can actually talk this time.”

“PLEASE DONT.” He chimes.

“Karkat, can you at least try to give him a chance? This could be good for us.”

“FOR US? WHAT THE HELL ABOUT THIS IS GOOD FOR US? NEITHER OF US WANT HIM OVER.”

“But you guys should really be meeting more people! I finally have the chance to introduce you to someone you don’t know, but I do! This could be a chance to maybe socialize? I think you guys need it.-”

“and i think you obviously have a thing for this guy.” Dave suddenly adds.

“What!?” You blurt out, very thrown off by this accusation.

“cmon (y/n). you were putting on the happy-go-lucky ass demeanor you always have when some dude youre into is around. and you were laughing like every minute.”

“LOUDLY. IT WAS INTERRUPTING MY GODDAMN THOUGHTS.”

You frown at this sudden accusation, and blush intensely at their teasing. “I do not have a thing for him!! He’s my friend!! And I’m trying to make him your guys too!”

“hard pass.”

“DAVE!” You shout in protest. He finally has to let out a snicker at how insistent you were being about this. It really couldn’t be more obvious. You blush harder.

“alriiiiiiiight alright. fine. if it means that much to you then ill try.”

Your smile finds its way back again slightly, still blushing. “Thank you.” Then you turn to Karkat.

“NO.” Is his immediate response as soon as you make eye contact, because he knows exactly what you’re about to ask.

“Karkaaaaatttttt” You plead. “Pleeeeaaaaaseeeeee!”

He glares at you, and you keep strong with your pouting, waiting for him to give in. This is held for a weird amount of time, as Dave watches, pretty amused by it. And then-

“UUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHH” He groans loudly and throws his head back, signaling that he's given in.

“Thank you!!!” You immediately respond to his groaning. You go over and give him a big hug, to which he weakly tries to retract from, as an attempt to show how much he did not want to agree to this.

“OH WHATEVER! GET OFF ME!!!” He yells, starting to blush lightly, but you can tell by his weak squirming that he didn’t actually dislike it. If he really wanted you off, he’d be clawing at you like a cat or something. You’ve seen it happen.

—————————————————————

And so your fate was set.

After that night, Rael comes over and tries again with the two boys. It goes better than last time, but they’re still not quite convinced. So, he comes over again, and again. And again. But it unsurprisingly becomes less and less for their sake.

One day, the two of you actually go out on an official “date”. To which the boys are very skeptical of, considering past mishaps. You insist to them it’ll be fine.

“We’ve been hanging out with Rael for a few weeks now! It won’t be any different than how it usually is hanging out with him! I’ll be fine.”

So, hesitantly, they let you go. They’re silently anxious and impatient when they wait for you that night, trying to bide their time in a way that tried to make it seem like they weren't both feeling this way.

To their surprise and relief, you come back totally sober. And happy! They haven’t seen you this happy in a while. Maybe this is a good thing after all… Right?

It’s an hour since you got back from your date with Rael and you’re in the bathroom doing your nightly routine. When you hear a knock on the bathroom door, you give your permission for them to enter, and in walks Karkat. “Hey Kar. What’s up?” You say, only glancing at him for a moment before going back to applying toner.

“SO… TONIGHT REALLY WENT WELL? LIKE YOU’RE NOT LYING AT ALL?”

“Yes. I promise you it went well.” You assure him again, despite having done so ealier.

“OKAY… YEAH. BECAUSE YOU SEEM REALLY HAPPY… ITS KIND OF WEIRD.”

You hold back a laugh, but it comes out anyways kind of like a snort. “What’s that supposed to mean?! It’s not like it was a date with just any random person like before!” You exclaim and he nods, leaning against the door, arms crossed. “Plus, you should know since I’m totally 300% definitely sober. Do you still want to test me just in case? I’ll walk in a straight line, look!” You start to do so as a joke, but realize after a few seconds that something is off with him. He looks lost in thought. “Kar.. What’s up? Is something wrong?”

The question seems to snap him back to the moment suddenly. “WHAT?! YEAH. I MEAN NO!! IM FINE.”

You frown, titling your head a little. “Are.. you sure?”

It’s quiet for a moment.

“…YOU REALLY LIKE HIM THAT MUCH?”

You smile, making sure once again that he knows you’re very serious about this. “Yes! I really really do. Seriously.” You reassure him, but you don’t realize that’s not at all what he wanted to hear. “I’m actually thinking about asking him…” You continue, but trail off.

“TO BE YOUR MATESPRIT???” Karkat shouts, eyes widening slightly and arms dropping.

“Well… yeah. I mean…“ You look away sheepishly. “Do you think I shouldn’t? I know how you guys feel about him, so-“

“YEAH. GO AHEAD. DO IT.”

Your head shoots back to him, surprised, not noticing the tensity of his response. “Really?!”

“YEAH. DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. GO BE HAPPY WITH HIM OR WHATEVER.”

This time you notice the harshness, but you brush it off as the usual grumpy commentary you get from your friend, not reading much into it. “Oh!… Okay! Thank you! I-“

“IM GOING TO BED. NIGHT (Y/N).” He says and he’s leaving before you can even protest.

“..Night..” you say weakly, even though no one’s there anymore. You hear a door slam down the hallway. Something in your heart sinks as you replay what just happened and analyze the look on Karkats face that whole conversation. It was almost…

You don’t even know. Really, what was that?

Anyhow, after that night, you two do make it official. Rael is over more often. Then, suddenly he’s spending the night “since he stays so late anyways”. The boys get used to him, but no closer to him at all. They more-so just put up with him for your sake. It’s what they had figured they might have to do when you eventually made it official with someone unfortunately. But there’s still always been something off about Rael, the way he’s so “chill” and “happy” all the time, to the point where it seems almost passive aggressive. There was a time where they watched while you disagreed with what they were ordering for dinner, and it almost seemed like he manipulated you into agreeing. But he was so subtle and upbeat about it that it was hard to point out. Plus, it’d be weird to address that they’re being that observant. Things like that happened pretty often, but they never decide to address it outwardly.

Work on the album continues as well. You’re more inspired and motivated than ever. Dave and you finalize your collab together, and all that’s left now is recording. What could go wrong?

… Lol.

—————————————————————

A few weeks pass since you got into your new relationship. You, Dave, and Rael took today to go to the studio together. Karkats been alone at home for a few hours, not wanting to tag along. He decided to actually try and bake you two something as a surprise, being the romantic yet non-physically-affectionate troll that he is. He knows the baking is done when the oven starts smoking. That’s definitely how this works.

As he goes to take the (basically burnt) pastries out of the oven, the door swings open with a loud bang, and then slams close with the same volume. Karkat nearly drops the container when the sound comes out of nowhere, followed by his clearly aggravated boyfriend flying into the room. He takes a seat on one of the dining room chairs. It stands quiet for a moment as Karkat stares at the blonde in shocked-confusion, oven mitts and pan still in hands.

“…DAVE?” He finally says to get his attention.

Dave quickly whips his head around to face him. “yeah? whats up?” He asks without hesitation, acting as if he didn’t just make a scene, and isn’t home earlier than expected.

“WHAT HAPPENED?? WHY ARE YOU HERE??”

“what? a dude can’t fly into his own home and take a seat on his comically high dining room chair?”

Karkat blinks a few times. “ISN’T IT EARLY FOR YOU TO BE HOME? ARE YOU FINISHED DOING YOUR-“

“yep. we finished early.”

“OKAY… WHERES (Y/N)-“

“probably still recording.”

“PROBABLY??? BUT-“

Another unnecessarily loud bang as the front door opens, and you come flying in.

“CAN WE NOT JUST OPEN THE DOOR LIKE NORMAL FUCKING PEOPLE?!” Karkat yells, now very aggravated after almost dropping the baked goods on the floor for the second time.

“Dave!!” You yell, remaining hovering above ground when you come to a halt in front of him. “What the hell was that about?! What do you mean you won’t do it?!”

“WONT DO WHAT??” Karkat asks from behind you, still confused.

“i just don’t feel like doing it anymore.”

“What?! But we spent so long working on the song! What happened?”

“YEAH SO IM SURE ITS A BIG FUCKING SURPRISE TO ALL OF US, BUT IM WONDERING THE SAME THING!!” Karkat interjects between the two of you, really desiring some type of answer.

You sigh, looking over to Karkat. “Dave suddenly said he didn’t wanna do the song anymore after we spent like not even a half hour trying to record it. He just said he didn’t want to do it and flew out!” You turn to look at Dave again. “I had to leave Rael at the studio to come chase you!”

“yeah well why don’t you go back to him then?”

“UGH! Why are you being like this??! I thought you liked the song!”

“i do.”

“Then why?!”

“i just don’t want to produce it anymore.”

“But!… but…” You trail off, not sure what to say anymore.

Silence. The three of you stay still for a moment, Dave looking to the side, you staring at him, and Karkat staring back and forth between both of you with—you guessed it— a still very-confused expression. You guys usually never argue like this. If you fight, it’s always lighthearted, but this felt different. None of you know how far you can take this. You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down before you speak again. You lower yourself so your feet touch the floor, slowly.

“Fine.. fine. We won’t release the song.” You say as calmly as you can. “But… can you please tell me the actual reason why?”

“…”

You and Karkat both stare at him, waiting for his response. The silence is deafening.

“i don’t want him working on the album.” He says, finally turning his head back to face you.

“What??”

“your boyfriend.”

“Why not?”

“because he ruins my flow.”

“Your flow.”

“yes.”

You turn your head from him to roll your eyes.

“Dave. He’s been helping me with almost this entire process. I can’t just not credit him or exclude him from production suddenly.” You tell him, crossing your arms.

“then i don’t want my song on the album. ill release it on the next one or something.” he says, mirroring you by crossing his arms, and leaning back in his chair.

“Are you serious right now?” You say, totally taken back at how stubborn he was being.

“yeah.” The two of you glare at each other, him straight-faced and you just straight-up pissed off.

This is really the first time things have ever gotten this heated between you guys, surprisingly, and it felt so weird. This never even happened when you three were stuck in the same building on a meteor in space for three years. There was bickering, sure, but never actual heartfelt aggression. The worst it’s ever gotten was when Karkat and Dave first met and fought all the time. But you’ve never actually fought with either of them in a serious light.

At this point Karkat’s had about all he can take while being silent. “ALRIGHT.” He finally drops the pan on the counter, and whips back around to address you both. “CAN YOU TWO JUST FIGURE OUT A GODDAMN SOLUTION? WITH ALL OF THE FUCKING BARELY-ANYTHING I KNOW ABOUT THE SITUATION, FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THIS IS PAINFULLY STUPID AND POINTLESS.”

“Tell him that! He’s the one who’s being totally unreasonable!” You retort, gesturing with one hand to Strider.

“i just don’t want my song on the album, is that such a big fucking deal? you have plenty of other ones. just make one with him or something.” He says coldly.

He’s never been this heartless to you. His words sting. You really wanted to release this song with him. It felt special, since you two put so much into it, it’s one of your favorite pieces off the whole disk.

Your frown gets deeper. “I want to release our song Dave. We worked so hard on it!”

“okay let’s just release it as a single then.”

“BUT WH-“ You take a sharp inhale. “Yknow what?” They both watch you as you carefully calm yourself down. “Fine. Let’s just release it later then! If that’s what you want.” You finally get out, in the most passive aggressively upbeat tone.

“okay.”

“Okay.”

“cool.”

“Great.”

“awesome.”

“Amazing.”

“rad.”

“OH MY FUCKING GOD. CAN ONE OF YOU JUST FUCKING LEAVE OR SOMETHING?! MY EARS ARE GOING TO START BLEEDING.”

“Gladly!” Are your parting words as you take his advice and fly up to your room. That’s when you know you’re upset, you don’t even bother using the stairs.

Karkat looks over at Dave somewhat sympathetically. Dave avoids eye contact with him, already knowing the look he’s getting.

“YOU WANNA TELL ME WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED NOW?” He asks, walking over to take a seat next to him.

Dave sighs hard and slumps into his seat, sinking into the hoodie he’s wearing. “i just cant fucking stand that guy. i dont even know why. i hate that i have to work with him. i already feel uncomfortable enough releasing my shit officially.”

Karkat nods along. Usually it’s him ranting, so he does take special care to be a listener when it’s Dave’s turn, which of course he's still good at with his history of people relying on him with their problems.

“-and like. he didn’t even say anything specifically. i don’t even know what it was dude. something just ticked me off and it was the last fucking straw i swear. like if i told you youd be like 'wow thats a fucking stupid thing to get pissed and quit about' but its not just that-“ He continues to rant for quite a while.

Meanwhile, you’re upstairs ranting to Rael over the phone. He only lets you talk for a short amount of time before he has to go, but he promises he locked up the studio and everything before he left. Still, you can’t help but feel discouraged about the whole thing as you lay on your bed, listening to your unreleased album through again with your headphones. Why was he being like this? Things were going so well… What happened?

You decide to go to bed early.

Time goes by too quickly for your liking after that. Dave stays stubborn, despite your pleading. And you really do end up releasing the album without one of its best pieces you were hoping to showcase.

Still though, it does incredibly well. It hits all the top charts, and passes record streams in less than a week. You’re getting bombarded for interviews, music video shoots, magazine features, etc. And yet, you haven’t taken any offers. You still barely go outside. You spend most of the day sleeping and just scrolling through the stats and comments on your phone. Things have been tense and awkward with your housemates ever since the argument. You’re not sure anymore if you’re still upset at Dave or upset at yourself that you actually went through with the release without him. Is that what he really wanted? It seemed like it. Karkat won’t talk to you about it either. It’s kinda been like the silent treatment.

You hate it.

Your boyfriend tries to beg you for some publicity, which he’s very rarely successful in. It gets a few appearances from you, but fans are still not satisfied. The little publicity you two do together, though, also gets him a lot of attention. Everyone wants to know more about you two and how you met.

You’re so tired. Why are you tired? Your boyfriend tells you that maybe you need to get away from your environment for a while. Maybe he’s right.

——————————————————————————————

It’s been about two weeks since the album release. Tonight there’s a dinner party being held at Kanaya and Rose’s gigantic house, to celebrate the album’s success and discuss deals with professionals interested. There’s lots of people there, musicians, producers, artists, directors, etc, and of course your friends. No reporters were invited, per your request stemming from past events anxiety. Karkat and Dave show up as well, to your surprise. You’re silently glad they still decided to show support in some way, despite not actually talking to you in several days. They came after you, and when you spotted them you got excited and nervous as hell at the same time. You never feel this way with them, it's like they're strangers suddenly?

You’re greeting all your friends as you make your rounds through the giant event hall. Everything is decorated so beautifully, of course the married couple always having an incredible eye for interior design. You make note to thank them again for all this later.

“Roxy! Calliope! June, so nice to see you!” You exclaim, making your way over to the group of three familiar faces.

The black-haired girl in thick glasses and a blue dress stands up to greet you. “(Y/n)! Big congrats on the release!! I listened to it when it came out and I love it! Really inspiring stuff.” June says happily, beaming that toothy smile.

You mirror her reaction. “Thank you so much. I appreciate the support guys, really.”

“Of course babe!! We got you no matter what.” Roxy smiles, giving you a sly lil wink.

“Yes.. I’m happy to be of sUpport to any of my friends.” Calliope adds. “I hope to see yoU continUe down yoUr road of sUccess!”

You keep conversing with them for a little while before moving on. You talk to Terezi and Vriska, Dirk and Jake and Jade, and many other visitors for a little while. Eventually you get pretty exhausted from all the social interaction, and decide to take a break at the snack table you've been eyeing for the past half hour.

Your boyfriend accompanies you as you approach the table, decked out with insanely delicious looking treats. You don’t even know where to start.

“Hey sweetheart. How’s it going? How you feelin?” He asks, placing a hand on your lower back.

“I’m great! The album and the party have been such a success... What wouldn’t there be to be happy about?” You reply without looking up at him, placing a few fruits on your small porcelain plate.

“You say that, but I know something’s been buggin' you. You know you can talk to me, right?” He replies. You feel a pang of guilt for masking your feelings so much around him lately. You’re scared to complain to him about how much not being able to talk to your best friends is effecting you.

“Yes! Yeah. Of course." You try to shake off the awkward feeling of secrecy with someone you're supposed to confide in. "But.. I promise, I’m okay! I’m more than okay! I just can’t believe this is all really happening.” You insist as you move right to grab some small cakes, putting on a half-fake smile. You really are happy with how things are going. Everything besides that. You wish it weren’t bothering you so much.

“Yep! ...It’s all really happening, just for you. You deserve it, babe.” He reassures you. You smile, your heart warming at his words, finally looking up at him, but see that he’s actually looking around. Your smile wavers. He turns back to meet your gaze a little late.

“Well… I couldn’t have done it without you! You’re the best.” You say half-heartedly.

He smiles fondly, and gestures at a glass of champagne in his free hand. “You sure you don’t wanna celebrate with some booze tonight?”

“You know I can’t.” Is your automatic response.

“Yes, I know how you feel about it. But really, you’ve been so good about being sober. You deserve to let loose for just one night!”

You bite your lip a little, cursing yourself in your mind for even thinking about taking the validation as permission. But still, you shake your head. “I can’t, really. But I’m still enjoying the party! Don’t worry!”

He nods, not bothering to push anymore for now. “Well, I’ll be making the big announcement in couple hours. Make sure you’re ready, cus I’m gonna get some people to record, okay?”

You nod, smiling. He leans down to kiss you quickly before saying he’s going to socialize some more, leaving you to your snacking. You wave as you watch him go, long after he’s already disappeared into a crowd of people.

He’s so sweet. Really, it’s all you could’ve asked for.

So… Why did it still feel wrong?

Rose later approaches you as you’re dipping your 4th marshmallow into the chocolate fountain. “(Y/n). May I talk with you about something?”

You finish popping the whole thing into your mouth when you muffle back “Mm? Myeah, whasshup?”

She chuckles a little before continuing. “You'll have to forgive me for asking, if it’s somewhat out of line, although I can't imagine it being so. But is there something going on between you and Dave and Karkat? …Davekat? You three haven’t talked all night. Usually nobody can get you to separate.”

You feel your stomach sink a little at the unwanted question, and take a moment to finish swallowing your snack before you respond. “Oh, it’s nothing really. We just had a little argument a couple weeks ago and-“

“An argument? What about?” She inquires, keeping a calm gaze with your eyes even when you start glancing around awkwardly. Oh boy.

“Ohhhh Dave and I just had a disagreement about the album I released.. But It’s really not a big deal. We’ll get over it.”

Rose’s eyebrows perk up a little as she becomes more intrigued. You usually know when to keep quiet, but to be honest, you haven’t really had anyone to talk to about this. You haven’t even wanted to talk to your boyfriend about it, since it involved him for some reason, so you’ve kept it to yourself. So, in your early defense, you were probably just desperate for someone to rant to.

“So yeah...” You think maybe you shouldn’t continue.

“And what did this disagreement entail?” She pushes again in her subtle way.

“Okay so, we were supposed to have this track together on the album, right? And we spend sooo much time-“ aaaand you’re spilling. Man, that was easy. She didn’t even have to pry it out at all, you were like an open book sitting on a teachers lap during story time.

As you’re telling the story, you come to realize you’re not even mad anymore. You’re just sad. It starts out frustrated, but becomes a little depressing and self-depreciating as the explanation goes on. “And now I’m not even sure where to go from here. Do I apologize? Do I wait for him to apologize? Should I just be the bigger person and say something? But what if they don’t want to talk to me or-“

“I fail to see what else there is to do besides talk about it.” She bluntly cuts off your ranting a bit early.

“Huh?”

“Lets say, hypothetically, you decide not to bring up the fore-mentioned subject again. I’m assuming talking to them at home is quite awkward right now because of the lingering elephant in the room, correct?-” You nod in response, which she knew was the answer, because she immediately continues. “-So, you continue to avoid them, and they continue to avoid you. But then, really, what’s next?”

You take a moment to think about it. What’s next?

“Well… I don’t know. But what if they don’t continue to avoid me?” You retort genuinely.

“In that quite unlikely situation, knowing my brother and my practically-brother-in-law pretty well, then it would probably warrant the same outcome as if you were to be the first to speak. But the point is that someone needs to initiate some type of communication about the situation, or this unusually awkward train isn’t going anywhere. And like I mentioned, we both know well how stubborn those two are." She watches your expression become more discouraged for a moment. "If you feel so guilty about going on with the release without Dave, then I see no good reason it can’t be you to initiate. Why don't you just apologize?” You start what is about to be a protest, but she holds up a hand to silence you before you can. Then she takes a brief moment to bite into an orange slice she's holding in her other hand, from an orange you didn’t even realize she had been peeling. She looks to the side for a second to think while she snacks, then turns back to you. “Even if you feel like you did the right thing, or were only doing what he said he wanted, you still feel guilty about it regardless. If it’s bothering you that much, which I know it is since you just avoided using a chocolate fountain for several minutes to rant the subject to me, then I say you rip the damn bandaid off.”

You take her words in for an even longer moment again. She’s… right. Of course. “Yeah...” You sigh.

She places a kind hand on your arm to comfort you for a moment. "I'm aware of how much you all care about each other. Don't let something so fickle be what pulls you apart. That'd be a disappointing situation to see play out in this timeline."

You smile just slightly at her encouragement. “Thank you, Rose. I guess I’ll have to work up the courage to talk to them about it this week somehow.”

“Or how does right now sound?”

“What?!” You only look up for a second to see her smirking, staring at something behind you, before suddenly she’s taking you by the arm and leading you a few steps backwards.

Karkat and Dave are walking and chatting, looking at each other, before turning forward to see you two, at the same time you turn to face forward and see them. Your expressions of awkward-surprise are mirrored, not including Rose of course, who looks entirely calm and satisfied at how perfectly this moment just played out.

“Hello, Dave. Hello, Karkat. I don’t think I’ve gotten to speak with you tonight yet.” She greets. You avoid eye contact with them.

“HEY ROSE.”

“yo.”

“How are you two enjoying the party? I know it’s not your usual scene.”

“nah, its cool. you always throw sick ass events in your unnecessarily huge mansion.” Dave replies, ignoring the awkwardness of you being right beside her.

“Again, not a mansion. And interesting of you to say so when you hardly ever come to these so called ‘sick ass’ events in mention.”

“hey. im a busy guy, what can i say?“

“Is that so? Please enlighten me on such things that keep the great Dave Strider busy.” She jeers.

“oh yknow. god stuff. big responsibilities. nuff said.” He adjusts his glasses, smirking a little. Then he puts his hands in his suit pockets. You hadn’t failed to notice earlier that Dave actually dressed up a little for the dinner party. Karkat is wearing a sweater and black jeans, but it’s different from what he wears around the house at least.

“How mysterious.” Rose and Karkat both roll their eyes. You feel her nudging you forward a bit. “Well, it’s all for (Y/n) today. But I’m sure you’ve already congratulated her on the release and such related subjects, yes?”

“yeah sure.” “YOU COULD SAY THAT.” They respond at the same time, overlapping words. You’re still not looking at them.

Rose turns her head to the left to spot her wife waving to her. Taking this moment to complete her mission, she waves back and lets go of your arm. “Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but a host has her duties to attend to, doesn’t she?” She doesn’t miss when Dave smiles at the word ‘duties’ to no surprise. “I’ll see you all later.”

And then, to your dismay, she’s walking off in the opposite direction. Leaving you and the two men who you haven’t properly talked to in a couple weeks despite living in the same house.

It’s… uncomfortably quiet for a handful for seconds.

“UH.. YEAH CONGRATULATIONS ON THE RELEASE BY THE WAY.. (Y/N).” Karkat says carefully, and you look over to finally make eye contact with him. You notice that Dave’s looking off in the other direction when you take a quick glance at him.

“Thanks, Kar. Have you guys listened to it at all?” You ask, giving a weak smile.

“YEAH. IT WAS GOOD. I REALLY LIKED HOW TRACK 3 CAME OUT HONESTLY.” He replies genuinely.

Your smile also grows genuine now. “Oh yeah.. that one was your favorite, right? I’m glad.”

Karkat nods, and when there’s an awkward silence afterwards, he nudges Dave a little bit to say something as well.

“i mean if you want me to be honest, i didnt yet. but technically i was there for the whole process of making it, so i already know what the tracks sounds like.” Dave comments flatly. Of course he was lying, he still listened to it when it came out, but he didn't feel like making small talk and half-assed compliments with the way things were with you at the moment. He just wanted to get to that snack table right now. Karkat scowls at him for his attitude, and continuing to make this conversation as awkward as possible.

You try your hardest not to get upset at this comment. “Well. I think it probably sounds a lot different now that it’s all put together… Maybe you could give it a listen?… Sometime?”

He finally turns to meet your gaze, pocker-faced. “yeah. sometime.” The seemingly cold response sends chills down your spine. It’s quiet again for a beat. “damn, im fiendin for a chocolate covered miscellaneous fruit right now to be honest.” Dave breaks the silence, completely changing subject and demeanor suddenly. He doesn’t bother looking at you again as he walks right past you to towards the table. Karkat follows hesitantly, and his eyes linger on you for longer than you’re able to notice.

Staring at the floor, you’re not sure what comes over you next. You start to feel a wave of emotion, everything from the past few weeks seeming to come up in your mind, everything you’ve been trying not to think about- and failing. You’re so sick of this. You have to say something. You remember Rose's advice, and it suddenly pushes you to blurt out:

“I’m sorry!!!” You say it out of nowhere, just loud enough for them to hear you. Dave stops, Karkat stops. They both turn over to look at you, and you slowly turn around to meet their eyes. “I’m sorry, okay?” You repeat.

“FOR WHAT?” Karkats the first to respond.

“What else?? For not including the song on the album!”

“dude, im not mad about the song.” Dave’s calmer than you expect when he replies.

“You’re not?”

“fuck no. we can release that shit whenever.”

“But.. then what…” You trail off. Karkat and Dave exchange a subtle glance. It’s really not an easy thing to explain to you. “Was it just the fight in general? I’m sorry I just stormed out and never said anything it was just-“

“yeah its not that either.”

“What??” It goes quiet again. You look very confused. Then you remember. Of course. “Oh. Is this about Rael?” You glance around a bit to make sure he’s not around when you ask this. The silence that follows tells you your answer.

You’re not really sure what to say, because you’re still not sure what exactly you have to be sorry about at first, regarding him. All you did was bring your boyfriend into your project. It made you happy. But you can think of one thing that maybe you crossed the line with.

“Okay well… I’m sorry then that I brought him into our song production. I shouldn’t have made you share that process with him. It was my mistake, really.” You’re looking at Dave the whole apology, so he knows you're being genuine. “Can we please just stop being so awkward around each other now? We can talk more later in private, if you want. I just hate having it be like this between us... So awkward, like you guys haven't seen me do a plethora of embarrassing things before, and vise versa. We're best friends, so why is our first instinct when we fight to ignore each other?” After a second, the two nod slightly in agreement.

“YEAH THIS IS FUCKING AWFUL. I HATE HAVING TO AVOID YOU IN OUR OWN HIVE. ITS SO WEIRD.”

“yeah this blows.”

“…So?” You wait for their response, mostly Dave’s, since he’s the one who has to accept the apology. You and Karkat both look at him.

“what? i just agreed that this is stupid.”

“So you'll forgive me? For now?”

“wait hold on. let me think about it. give me a second.” He says holding his hand out, and then bringing it to his chin to over-exaggerate his thinking. He takes a deep breath. “hm… yea i dont know im not convinced. how much AJ are you offering if i do?” He says in a way where you can obviously tell he's teasing, but it flys over Karkat's head.

"DAVE!" He elbows him, and Dave holds his side with a "what! i was joking!"

But then you're laughing, and they both turn to you curiously. It's the first time they've heard you laugh for a little while, and it puts you all at ease, making all the tension suddenly disappear. The other two smile slightly at you after a moment, and Dave joins in lightly chuckling with you. You beam, walking up to pull both of them into a hug. They’re both taken off guard at first, but then melt into it, hugging you back. You really needed this, and it was literally so easy to just talk to them that you feel stupid being so overdramatic about it this whole time.

“Thank you! I’m so glad you guys-“

“(Y/n)!!”

You turn to the sound of your name cutting you off. When you turn around, you see your boyfriend leaning out of the dining room doorway, waving you over. You nod and wave back, gesturing that you’re coming. You turn around a little sheepishly. “Sorry.. I should go see what he wants..”

“go ahead.”

“YEAH ITS FINE.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you guys later though, okay?” They both nod and you pull them into one last quick hug before quickly making your way over to the kitchen. They watch you go for a while, exchange a glance, and then turn to serve themselves some food.

It’s been over an hour and Karkat and Dave have been sitting on the couch on their phones for longer than probably acceptable at a social event. They’re leaning on each other, slumped, a sign that they haven’t moved for a while. There’s been no sight of you since you walked off earlier, which could be their fault. Still, they figured maybe you’d come find them. Finally, Dave leans back from his phone, his head pushing back onto Karkat’s arms, blocking his phone.

“yo i think im gonna go hit the bathroom and then grab a drink. you want anything?”

“NO IM FINE.”

“you sure? youre not thirsty?”

“YES STRIDER I ASSURE YOU IM NOT FUCKING LYING TO YOU ABOUT THE STATE OF MY HYDRATION.”

“aight. just checking. that shits important.” He responds, waiting for Karkats eye-roll in response before standing up and heading off.

On the way to the bathroom, Dave says hey to June and Jade and a couple other people. He forgot that there were actually a lot of people he knew here and not just random artists and whoever else Rose invited. The closer he gets to the bathroom, the less noisy his surroundings get, the chatter slightly fading to a muffle as Dave closes the door behind him into the hallway.

“jesus this place is a fucking maze.” He mumbles to himself, despite being alone. When he gets up to the bathroom door, he can hear a voice from inside. Figuring he’ll just wait until they’re out, he leans his back against the wall. Though it’s weird someone is talking in a one person bathroom? He ends up eavesdropping a little. That’s when he realizes the voice is familiar. It takes a few seconds and then… it’s Rael. He wasn’t going to think anything of it, just going back to minding his business, until he hears your name.

“Yeah (Y/n)’s party is going great! It’ll be announced soon and we’ll get to start the next project together. It’s all going hella smooth.” Dave doesn’t notice when he’s subconsciously leaning his ear to the wall for a better listen. “Dude what? Nah, it’s fine. When I break up with them, they’ll still have those two dorks they obviously like. I just need to get this part over with so I can start making bank. But it’ll be fun.” Dave’s eyes widen more with every word. There’s no way. He has to be imagining this. “Yeah, I’m good. I mean, like I said before, the other perks of the relationship aren’t bad either. You should’ve seen the way they-“

“no fucking way.” He mumbles to himself, and he feels sick listening to the rest. The anger and shock is so overwhelming, he’s not even sure what he should do right now. Should he confront the guy? Should he tell you? No, no way, it’d ruin your night. And would you even believe him?

Despite his burning urge to punch the shit out of your ‘boyfriend’ when he walks out, instead he starts speed walking back into the event room and to his previously designated couch. Karkat feels a sudden hand on his shoulder from behind the couch and a voice right in his ear “karkat!”

He jumps and swings around to face his boyfriend, his hand on his chest from shock. “JEGUS CHRIST DAVE YOU SCARED THE EVERLIVING FUCK OUT OF ME!!” He shouts.

“dude. you won’t believe the shit i just heard.” He says, ignoring the previous comment, his voice a little quieter than normal.

“WHAT? I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO THE BATHROOM?”

“yeah yeah i was. but (y/n)’s boyfriend was in there, and he..” Dave goes on to explain everything he heard.

Every word Dave continues with, Karkat’s face gets noticeably more pissed off. His eyes widen, his sharp teeth start to show more as his mouth opens in disbelief, he clenches his fists. “NO. FUCKING. WAY.”

“thats what i said.”

“YOURE KIDDING, RIGHT? YOU’VE GOT TO BE PULLING ONE OF YOUR DUMB IRONIC PRANKS ON ME RIGHT NOW.” He insists, despite knowing he must be telling the truth.

“no dude i would not joke about this. honestly i wish i were joking.”

It’s silent for a moment, and Dave just watches as Karkat seethes with rage, staring at nothing.

“so... what… do you think we should do?” He asks cautiously. But instead of saying anything, Karkat's standing up and darting off like he’s on a mission. Dave quickly tries to follow behind him, startled.

“wait. wait! karkat.” He shouts, catching up to him and grabbing his shoulder, making him stop.

“WHAT?!” He says, whipping around to face him.

“what are you doing??”

“GEE I WONDER. I’M GOING TO TELL THEM THAT THEIR BOYFRIEND IS A HUGE DOUCHEBAG!! WHAT THE HELL ELSE?!”

“you cant!” He replies immediately, and he’s not even sure where it came from, it was so automatic.

“WHY?!?!”

“because!… i dont know. maybe its not the right time. cus yknow itd kinda suck if i got told my boyfriend was using me at a party im supposed to be enjoying and celebrating my success at and shit. right?” He explains, even a little unsure of his own words. Karkat takes a second to think about it, and it seems to resonate with him a little, but thinking about what the guy said again, his anger returns and he shakes the previous thought off.

“DAVE. WHO GIVES A FAT FLYING FUCK ABOUT TIMING!!" He argues, throwing his arms up to emphasize. "I GET HOW YOU FEEL, BUT IF I WERE THEM, I WOULD WANT TO KNOW. AND I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’RE SO OVERPROTECTIVE WITH (Y/N) ANYWAYS. YOU SHOULD’VE TOLD THEM WHAT THEY SAID THAT NIGHT THEY WERE DRUNK TOO, BUT THEY STILL DON’T EVEN KNOW. DON’T THEY DESERVE TO KNOW IMPORTANT SHIT LIKE THIS??”

There’s a silence. He knows that Dave agrees, but he doesn’t understand why he’s being so careful anyways. “IM TELLING THEM.” And with that, he continues to stomp around looking for you, Dave somewhat anxiously following behind him.

They finally spot you from behind, talking to some people they’ve never seen before.

“(Y/N)!” Karkat shouts when he’s a few feet away from you, making everyone in the circle turn. When you turn around though, your face has a bit of a pink hue, and there’s an empty bottle in your hand. An alcohol bottle. Not only that, but when you see the two of them, your face immediately lights up and you smile that big, goofy, drunk smile. You stumble a little bit to meet them when they both stop in their tracks at the sight of you. Karkat reaches out to hold your arms, steadying you when you get to them.

“(Y/N)?? WHAT THE FUCK?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING SOBER?!” He says and Dave nods, still in a bit of shock.

“Yeahhhh! I was! Butt yknoww Raelie said ‘ohhh come onnnnnnnn its ur night! u should be celebrating with booze!! dont be lame’ And I thought ok YEAH! I mean what’s one…. Or ah fwew drinks gonna make a big differance.. rhight?” You ramble, making big gestures as you speak. Both of their hearts sink as you talk, realizing what’s going on.

“he seriously peer pressured you into drinking again? even though he knew you were trying to stay sober?” Dave says, feeling disgusted at the thought of him again.

“Huh?? No i chouse to-”

“NO YOU IDIOT HE MADE YOU FEEL LAME FOR TRYING TO BE SOBER. THATS WHAT FUCKING PEER PRESSURE IS!! AM I REALLY HAVING TO EXPLAIN THIS SHIT TO YOU? ARE YOU A WRIGGER OR SOMETHING? DID YOU JUST HATCH??”

You frown. “I know what peer presure is!!! He didn’t preshure me!!” You shout back defensively.

“karkat chill. its not their fault.” Dave says, trying to calm him a little. Of course, those were not the best words he could’ve chosen.

“CHILL??? FUCK NO!! IM NOT GONNA SIT BACK AND WATCH MY BEST FRIEND GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED OVER BY SOME DOUCHEY GARBAGE CAN IN A HUMAN FLESH SUIT. HE CAN SUCK MY GOUGING BONE BULDGE!! I DONT GIVE A FUCK ANYMORE.” He’s yelling louder than normal, and quite a few people have started to stare now. Dave looks around awkwardly. You are now confused and a little shocked at the sudden outburst.

“I’m sorry, I can do what now?” Comes a familiar voice from behind the two boys. They turn their heads to see Rael.

“YOU HEARD ME MOTHERFUCKER!! HOW DARE YOU WALK THE EARTH I CREATED JUST TO BE SUCH A FUCKING BULDGEWAD TO SOMEONE WHO ALSO FUCKING CREATED IT!!! I LOATHE WHATEVER KIND OF SORRY EXCUSE IS ABOUT TO COME OUT OF YOUR IGNORANCE TUNNEL AFTER THIS!” He shouts, pointing in his face, as Rael puts his hands up in defense- a little jokingly. Rael holds somewhat of a smug look on his face, faking surprise, which only pisses Karkat off more.

“Woah! Woah! Calm down, man!” He starts, moving past him with his hands still in the air, to be next to you. He places a hand on your back, and Dave has to hold Karkat back by the arm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to throw my partner a good album-release-dinner-party.”

Karkat shakes off Dave’s grasp to get up in his face again. “YOU DIDN’T THROW JACK SHIT. ROSE AND KANAYA PROBABLY PLANNED THIS ENTIRE THING THEMSELVES. AND YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE HELL IM TALKING ABOUT YOU TWO-FACED BLITHERING FECULENT SHITHOLE!!” A few people in the crowd of people gasp at this, and Dave sighs, putting a hand up to shield his face slightly.

“What are you talking about?!” You finally shout back, extremely confused.

“(Y/N).” Karkat looks deep into your eyes, with a gaze more gentle than he was just staring up at your boyfriend with, placing both hands on your shoulders. Your eyes widen, and Rael stares down at you two blank-faced. “THIS GUY IS USING YOU FOR YOUR FAME. WE HEARD HIM SAY IT. WELL… DAVE HEARD HIM SAY IT.”

You glance over his shoulder at Dave, and he nods slightly, reassuring the statement. You go back to eye contact with Karkat, and he looks dead serious. “BREAK UP WITH HIM. TRUST ME ON THIS.” He tells you suddenly, and your eyes widen again, bigger this time.

“What?!” You say immediately, shocked, but Karkat keeps the same serious face. You want to trust him but…

You look up to your boyfriend, who’s not even looking at you, he’s making some kind of intense eye contact with Dave. “Rael… Whaht are they talking about?? You’re.. ushing me?” You mean to say as a firm question, but it also comes out a little nervous.

He turns to make eye contact with you, and for a half-second you can’t see any emotion in his face. Then he melts into a sweet loving tone “No, baby. Of course not.” He takes your cheek in one hand. “I would never do some lame shit like that. Why would I go through all that just for some clout?? I really don’t know what they’re saying.” You immediately feel comforted by this, but there’s still a doubtful gut feeling in you. Your mind is a little clouded from drinking, but you know you always trust your best friends. Why would they lie to you? They have never liked him though… But they still wouldn’t lie… Right?

Karkat, on the other hand, is about to go off the rails. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? I MEAN I KNOW YOU'RE A LIAR BUT COME THE FUCK ON?! WE HEARD YOU SAY IT.”

“Say what?” He says, turning to them, looking genuinely confused.

“that youre using them!” Dave cuts in suddenly, finally having enough of this conversation. “you said you were only working on the album for the fame and you were gonna break up with them! i heard your whole sleezy ass conversation in the bathroom. why would you even go to the bathroom to take a phonecall if it wasn’t for something you were trying to hide?”

Your heart pangs. Why are they so genuinely upset if Rael said they were wrong? Maybe it’s a misunderstanding?

“In the bathroom?? I was never talking to someone in the bathroom. And why would you even be trying to listen to my conversation if I was? That’s just weird." Dave opens his mouth to retort, but Rael cuts him off again. "But anyways, I’d never screw them over like that! You guys are making ridiculous assumptions!” He starts to get defensive now. It’s a really believable act, because you’re not sure who to believe at all. Although, you’re starting to lean towards Rael, despite your better judgment. Even if these two are actually telling the truth, then this party would just turn into a big scandal event and the next few months of your life will probably be hell again. You don’t want to believe it.

“seriously?!” Now Dave’s getting actually pissed, as he moves in closer to the rest of you. You can feel the heat rising.

“JUST TELL THE FUCKING TRUTH YOU FUCK. SERIOUSLY WE’RE GIVING YOU A FREE FUCKING PASS HERE.”

“I don’t know what the hell you two are talking about, I told you! I wouldn’t do stupid petty shit like that.”

“ARE YOU SURE?? BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO ME TO BE RIGHT UP YOUR DAMN DECEIVING ASS ALLEY.”

“I’m sorry, do you two have any kind of proof of anything? Because this is a lot to be accusing someone of suddenly. Is this a publicity stunt?”

“what?? no-“

“WHY WOULD WE NEED PROOF? WE’RE (Y/N)’S CLOSEST FRIENDS WHY WOULD WE HAVE TO LIE?! YOU'RE THE ONE DOING THE PUBLICITY STUNT WITH THEM!!”

So many people are looking right now. You start to hear whispers. Glancing around, luckily you don’t see anyone recording, but you start to remember the articles again, and you’re getting more anxious by the second.

“HEY. IVE GOT AN IDEA. HOW ABOUT INSTEAD OF DEALING THIS USELESS BACK AND FORTH WITH THIS FILTH SPEWING TAINT-LICKER, WE JUST FUCKING DROP HIM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DAMN PLANET OR SOMETHING!!! THEN MAYBE HE’D STOP FUCKING UP OUR LIVES!!”

“ALRIGHT!!!” You shout, matching Karkat’s volume, immediately silencing him and making them all turn to you. You look around again anxiously before you continue, lowering your tone now. “Look. I don’t know what the hellss gotten into you two toniight but this is reaaally REALLY annoying and ridiculous!!! Ok!! I get yew dount like him!! Fine!! I know it everyday becushe you make it super obvuouhs always!!!! But can you not make the dinner party a huge fugcking scene! This ise embarrassing!!” You all hold eye contact for a few beats. You’re breathing heavy from the sudden outburst, and now some people are starting to try to pretend like they aren’t looking, to your slight relief. Then, you spot Kanaya and Rose looking over at you with concern. You look to them, and then the bottle in your hand, and suddenly you’re very embarrassed. The anxiety continues to build.

“(y/n)… do you not believe us?” Dave’s the first one to break the silence. The two of you now hold an intense stare now. Your eyebrows are furrowed, but they slowly lift as your expression softens. “I!… I don’t know. All I knouw is thaat you two have neever been supportive of us!! So… Ok yeah maybe itss kinda haurd to believe you now!” You cross your arms.

When you look at Karkat, your heart sinks again. He’s looking at you with hurt and disappointment. You don’t think he’s ever looked at you that way, not even when you had the addiction. Though you suppose you started that again as well. You feel more guilty. “I… I can’t do this right now.. Can we just talk about this later?” You say, tone suddenly much sadder from before.

Karkats expression phases back into an angry one again. “NO. NO YOU KNOW WHAT? ITS FINE. THERES NOTHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT IF YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO TRY TO BELIEVE A WORD WE’RE FUCKING SAYING. DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT THEN. FUCK ME FOR LOOKING OUT FOR YOUR WELL BEING!!.” He shouts and turns, starting to walk away from you.

Your eyes begin to water, but for some reason you're getting angry at the same time. “WELL… FINE. I WILL THEN! I NEVER ASKED YOU TO DO ANYTHING FOR ME ANYWAYS!! ALL I WANTED WAS YOUR SUPPORT!!” And you don’t even let them respond before you dart off behind you into a crowd of people.

Only Dave watches you go, and Karkat stops and stares at the ground with his arms crossed. He also can’t decide whether to be sad or angry, but angry is easier for him to show.

Rael continues to stare at them after you leave, keeping his place. The two boys both look over to him when they notice he’s still there.

“what the fuck are you still standing here for??” Dave snaps at him, exhausted.

Rael looks around to make sure no one was watching anymore, and they weren’t. In fact, most started to walk in the direction you ran off in, since the drama might presumably follow you. He then flags down one of his buddies and whispers to him to start the announcement. Dave and Karkat watch in confusion as the other guy runs off and Rael turns to make eye contact with them again. He’s smiling now.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SO SMILEY ABOUT, ASSHOLE?!”

“Haha! You guys are a damn riot, I’ll give you that. (Y/n) sure knows how to pick em.” He says giddily, suddenly changing demeanor so drastically.

“whatever dude.“ Dave comments flatly, not wanting to keep talking to this asshole.

“Hey, you got me, alright? I’ll admit it.” He runs a hand through his hair. “But it doesn’t matter anyways-”

“WHAT?!” ”what?!” They say in unison.

On the speakers a little further into the room, an announcement starts being made.

[Hey everyone! Thanks so much for coming out to celebrate (Y/n)’s Third album release! There’s a few things we want to-]

“Yeah, look, they’re not gonna believe you. It’s too fucking wild of an assumption. Because really, why would someone go through all that for fame?”

“YEAH THATS EXACTLY WHAT IM WONDERING. YOU’D HAVE TO BE A REAL FUCKING DICKHEAD.” Karkat snaps back sarcastically.

[-If you discussed any possible offers for (Y/n) tonight please make sure one of their managers has your contact information as well as-]

“Exactly. But I’m not like everyone. I’ll do anything to achieve my what I wan-“

“OH MY GOD PLEASE SHUT THE EVERLOVING FUCK UP.” Karkat groans, cutting off what sounded to be the start of a cringy self determination speech.

Rael laughs again. It rumbles over the announcement that continues to overlap their conversation. “Alright alright. I know you guys are sick of me now. But hey, think of it like this-"

[-I mean truly, we're all so proud of the success that has continued to skyrocket from this long-awaited release, and there's sure to just be more great works on the way-]

"-You can have (Y/n) after the tour now, so it's not all that bad for you guys. Since you’re so obsessed with each other, I’m sure that’s what you wanted!”

“WHAT?!” They both say again in unison.

“Oh, I’m sorry did you not notice yourselves yet? Even if I did actually like (Y/n), which I almost did in the beginning by the way, how could I not see the obvious tension between you three? It would be impossibly awkward to be around you together all the time, and I can never seem to get them away from you either. You’re all they ever talk about for gods sake.” Rael even chuckles a little at the thought of it, clearly not even that bothered by it, just amused.

Dave and Karkat side eye each other for a few moments, trying to read each other’s expression about this accusation, and feeling slightly more guilty about the situation now than before. Were they really preventing you from having a relationship, even if this guy hadn't turned out to be a douchebag?

Then something clicks in Dave’s head. “hold on… did you say tour?” He asks suddenly, and Karkat looks at him confused as it starts to click for him too.

Raels smiles again at this, and he starts walking backwards towards where the announcement is being made. “Well. Maybe I’ll catch you guys later!” He shouts nicely.

“GET BACK HERE YOU FUCK!! YOUR PLAN ISN’T EVEN GOOD PEOPLE ARE JUST GONNA FUCKING HATE YOU AFTER!! YOU’RE A BUMBLING IMBECILE!!!” Karkat shouts after him, but he only laughs as he turns around and disappears from sight again.

“hey, it’s fine. i got that all on recording.” Dave says calmly, holding up his phone that still continues to take a video, and holding Karkat from going after him with his other arm.

“WHAT? REALLY?”

“yeah. he was talking all that shit earlier about having no proof. but they have to believe us now, right?”

[But anyways, enough of me! We’d like to tell you all some big news that we’ve finally made official! And I’ll pass the mic over to Rael so he can share it with you all!]

Karkat and Dave turn toward the speakers. There’s a lot of people gathered around a small platform where Rael's friend was just making the announcements. They can barely see over the amount of people, but then Dave spots your face as you walk up and stand behind Rael. There’s no readable emotion on your face.

[R: Thank you all! Really! This has been such a great event. And I want to especially thank the lovely Rose Lalonde and Kanaya Maryam for knowing how to throw together such a great dinner party on such short notice!]

Karkat rolls his eyes and huffs.

[R: Now I’m sure you’re all curious what this big announcement is!]

Everyone cheers and claps a bit as confirmation.

[R: Well… It took a lot of string pulling and quick planning, but (Y/n) and I are proud to announce, we’ve decided to go on a world tour!!]

Gasps and applause ring throughout the room. Karkat and Dave’s face change to a look of absolute horror. He wasn’t bluffing.

[R: This will be (Y/n)’s second ever tour, and I’ll be accompanying them on stage! Please come and show support if you’d like to! Everyone here will revive a free ticket so-]

Karkat suddenly feels sick as he turns away from the stage, covering his mouth. This was a nightmare. A world tour. You’d be gone for such a long time again.

Dave puts his arms around Karkat to support him, and he looks over his shoulder to search for your face again above the crowd. When he does, you both make eye contact at the same time. Your slight smile immediately turns into a frown, and you're the first to look away again, almost shamefully.

You were going to tell them before it was announced, but everything happened so fast. You knew they’d be upset if they didn’t hear it from you.

Dave frowns and turns to walk towards the door with Karkat. Tonight was a lot, so maybe it’d be better to just go home.

But there’s no reassurance or making up afterwards this time.

They go home, but you don’t follow.

You don’t come home that night. Or the next night.

—————————————————————

The house’s atmosphere is intensely gloomy. The two boys can barely talk about anything other than what happened that night. Pent up anger they can’t express to you, since you won’t come home or answer your phone, ends up coming out at each other sometimes. They start fighting about small stupid things, and the arguments always eventually turns into something along the lines of “WHEN THE HELL IS (Y/N) JUST GONNA COME HOME ALREADY?”

When three days pass since the party, the anger dies down a little and worry starts to take its place. Calls are made to a handful of other friends asking if they’ve heard from you. No one says they have until they talk with Rose, who says you had come over briefly the day prior to thank them for the party.

At least they knew you were okay. But now they know you’re definitely ignoring them.

From your point of view, you had been spending the nights at Rael’s place, and your unsureness of the situation also caused you to be quite cranky. You tend to snap at Rael a lot, which causes him to just leave you alone most of the time. He goes out a lot as well, so you’re usually by yourself.

But you miss them.

You want to go home. But you’re too exhausted to want to deal with this, especially right before tour. You don’t even know what you’d say to them. You’re upset at them, but you feel bad at the same time, because you know they’re upset at you as well. Plus you can't stop beating yourself up about the relapse. You broke a promise to your friends, but more importantly, yourself.

You unlock your phone and go to look at Dave’s text messages to you for the hundredth time.

Tuesday 1:34pm Dave™️💿: yo can you at least tell us where you are Dave™️💿: and that youre like safe and not dead maybe? Tuesday 3:53pm Dave™️💿: i mean i doubt that something heroic or just happened for you to actually be dead Dave™️💿: but you never know Dave™️💿: maybe you decided to push an old lady out of the way of a big truck headed straight for her because you realized shes blind and couldnt see it coming Dave™️💿: or because maybe she just had like Dave™️💿: really ass peripheral vision or some shit Dave™️💿: you just fly in like superman and Dave™️💿: wait fuck we can fly i always forget we can fly Dave™️💿: yeah i guess that wouldnt happen since you could just fly away with her instead of pushing her out of the way which would probably still put her in the hospital anyways Dave™️💿: but you get my point Dave™️💿: like i doubt something like that happened but itd be nice to be reassured Tuesday 8:20pm Dave™️💿: karkats still super pissed off im ngl but im willing to talk about it if you want to Dave™️💿: plus i have something you really need to see Dave™️💿: but i dont want to send it to you cus i dont know where you are or where your heads at right now Dave™️💿: ok ill stop spamming you but seriously text me asap Dave™️💿: its like the damn twilight zone up in here

And that’s just from today.

You sigh. It’s really hard to stay away from them like this. You remember what Rose said that night, and you know you should really talk to them.

Rael walks into the room, looking dressed to go out.

“Hey.” You greet, melancholy. “Where are you going? Don’t we start practicing tomorrow? The tour is really last minute so we'll probably be rehearsing all day.”

“Yeah I’m just going to this party my friends invited me to. It’ll be fine.” He says, fixing his hair in the mirror.

“Again? Do you always go to parties this often when you’re not with me?”

“Yeah, why? Is it a problem?”

The attitude in his voice makes you feel sad, but you shake your head. “No.. I just didn’t know.. Sorry.” You respond and go back to your phone, not wanting to make a big deal. You're already exhausted.

He walks over to you and places a kiss on the top of your head, which permits a range of conflicted emotions inside you. “It’s alright babe. I’ll be back before midnight, okay?” You nod and he grabs his coat before leaving the room.

You stay staring at your homescreen as you hear the front door close. Your finger lingers over the 'phonecalls' application for a while. You reluctantly press it.

There’s still a ton of missed calls from Dave, and a few from some others. You linger again over the call back button next to Daves contact name, biting your lip. After what feels like a couple minutes, you press it, but the second it starts ringing you hang up again.

You grip the phone tightly, and then toss it to the end of the bed with a loud groan, falling back onto the pillow behind you. This is annoying.

Suddenly you hear a vibration, and you body shoots up to look at your phone a few feet away from you, but it’s off. Looking around curiously, you spot another phone on the dresser. It’s Rael’s. He forgot it.

You crawl over, hovering over the screen to read a name you don’t recognize. Eventually it stops ringing, and the screen fades to the lockscreen photo of Rael performing during your tour. You slowly take the phone in your hand, swiping up on the screen to the passcode input. You look cautiously around the room even though you know you're the only one here. You know his password. You saw him put it in once and laughed at how stupid it was, but maybe he changed it after? Only one way to find out…

No.

You stop put the phone down, scolding yourself for even thinking about snooping through your boyfriends phone. Why would you need to do that? You trust him, right? You trusted him that night so...

…

It’s not like he should have anything to hide…

Yeah. There’s nothing suspicious that should be there, so what’s the harm in looking? He wouldn’t mind.

You quickly pick up the phone again, rapidly sliding up and typing ‘6969’, the screen making a click sound and opening to yet another homescreen photo of him. You immediately go for the texts app, scanning the messages. You don’t find anything weird though, everything seems normal to you.

Of course.

You click on the photos app. Nothing weird here either. Screenshots of random things, photos of random things, a few photos of you two, and tons of selfies.

Okay…

You click the phonecalls app now, scanning through the recent calls. There’s not anything strange here of course, since it’s not like you would recognize any of these names. However, there is one number that isn’t registered as a contact. You’d brush it off as a spam call, but it was ongoing for almost 20 minutes. Then you notice it was the day of the party, and it was an outgoing call. Why would he call an unknown number and talk for 20 minutes with them? On the same day Dave and Karkat accused him of saying those things on call in the bathroom…

You can’t be sure.. but it is the only call made that day.. so what if..

You hear the front door unlock and open, and you immediately snap out of your daze you got caught up in. Hearing the footsteps down the hall start to get closer, you quickly throw the phone back on the dresser and try to sit natural like you weren’t just snooping through his history.

“Hey babe I think I forgot my-“ He stops in the doorway, raising an eyebrow at your weirdly composed position with your phone sitting at the foot of the bed. “Uh.. Phone.”

“Oh really? How’d you manage to do that?” You smile, which is out of character for you the past few days.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh? Oh nothing, I was just thinking about stuff..." Your eyes drag over to the television. "Like what I should watch on the TV! There’s.. so many channels.... ha.”

“Okay…” He gives you a weird look, and then glances over to spot his phone. “Ah! There it is. Alright I’ll see you later.” He grabs it and immediately starts doing something on it as he leaves the room again. Luckily he doesn’t seem to suspect anything.

“Okay! Bye!” You shout to him and you hear the front door open and close again. You let out a sigh of relief.

…

Your phone starts to ring, surprising you again. You look over.

It’s Dave.

—————————————————————

Tuesday 8:21pm.

Dave is chilling on the couch after just sending you todays ‘last text’, even though he knows he’ll definitely text you again tomorrow if you still don’t respond. Karkat sits on the other side of the couch, with one hand in his hair probably squeezing the color out of it, and the other tapping away on the down arrow of his laptop (husk-top). Really, he could not be hitting the button any harder. It’s practically ringing throughout the whole house.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

“dude. take it easy on the keys. i can hear them begging you for mercy at this point.” Dave comments, staring over at him. Karkat hasn’t spoken a word since yesterday. Which is honestly impressive, but it is starting to scare his boyfriend at this point. He just turns to make eye contact with Dave, looking just as pissed off as he has since they got home, and continuing to hit the keys like he’s trying to break them. Then he goes back to whatever he’s looking at.

“ok. cool. forget i said anything i guess.” He says passive aggressively, but also at this point he can’t seem to care anymore. He goes back to looking at his phone.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK-

“AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Karkat finally shouts out in aggravation, grabbing his face and throwing his head back, making Dave jump in his seat. “AAAAUUUGHGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And then he throws his laptop (HUSKTOP.) across the room. Wow.

“wow.”

“GIVE ME YOUR PHONE.”

“what? why?”

“BECAUSE IM CALLING (Y/N).” He says and he starts to reach over for Daves phone.

He pulls his arm back to hold it out of reach. “i already did today and they wont answer. why dont you just call on your phone?”

“THEY WONT ANSWER IF ITS ME IM THE ONE WHO CUSSED THEIR BOYFRIEND OUT.”

“ok well if you havent noticed, theyre not answering me either so were both shit out of luck right about now. hate to break it to you.”

“JUST GIVE IT TO ME!!” He shouts hysterically, starting to climb over him to grab the phone.

“dude calm down!!” Dave shouts back, startled, holding the phone up over his head now.

Kartkat continues to fight for the phone, and Dave continues to move further to keep it out of his reach. Eventually, Dave ends up sitting up on the couch and just holding it to his chest, buried in his arms to shield it from grabbing. Karkat gets on his lap and tries to grasp for it, but then Dave suddenly puts his arms around him, locking Karkats arms to the side of his body. Karkat squirms around in this position with all his might.

“LET GO OF ME STRIDER!!!! LET GO NOW OR I SWEAR!!!”

“nope! were staying like this until you chill the FUCK out.”

“THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE STATE OF HOW ‘CHILL’ I AM!! I NEED TO TALK TO THEM!!!”

“no shit we both do!! but they wont answer!!! you know they wont!” Dave protests, still keeping a tight hold on Karkat, his head tucked into his side as well.

Kakat’s struggling starts to get weaker and weaker after Dave says this, until finally he relaxes, letting himself drop his weight down and his head fall onto Daves shoulder. Dave lets out a subtle sigh of relief.

“theyll call when theyre ready dude. itll be fine.”

It’s quiet for a while as they both stay in this position, breathing a little heavy in the beginning from all the struggling, and then calming down.

“man. they cant go on another tour. or at least not without talking to us.”

There’s more silence as Karkat just lays dead still on his shoulder. Dave clicks on his phone to check for a notification, to which there’s still just a blank screen. He sighs. The air stays still and calm like this. He starts to lightly rub Karkats back after a while, comforting him silently. Karkat begins to purr after a couple minutes of this, to his further relief.

“you okay?” Dave asks, breaking the silence as he moves his head a little to try to see his face.

“…YEAH.” He responds in a tired sounding tone, not moving at all. “SORRY.”

“its cool.”

…

“do you miss them?” He asks, and even he thinks it comes out a little strange after it’s left his mouth. When there’s no response, he tries again to get a look at his face.

“hey.” Dave says, shaking him slightly to try to get him to sit up. “look at me.” Karkat reluctantly raises his head a little to face him.

“WHAT D-“ Dave cuts off whatever he might’ve said by pulling him into a kiss. It shocks him, but he doesn’t pull away at all, and eventually he’s kissing back. He starts purring again. When Dave pulls back, he’s got a sweet smile on his face, and Karkat is blushing intensely, his bright red blood always making it so noticeable.

“WHAT WAS THAT FOR…” He asks a little sheepishly.

“what? a guy cant just kiss his boyfriend? are you homophobic?”

“NO! I MEAN-”

“thats fucked up karkat. to be homophobic in this day and age. honestly. you should be ashamed.”

“OH JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.” He crosses his arms, and looks away, still flustered. Dave laughs a little, and then leans back onto the couch, closing his eyes.

“things have just gotten so intense. i think we need to chill.”

“…YEAH…” Karkat looks back over and stares at him for a little longer, blush still lingering, and then eventually leans forward to lay against his chest.

There’s another long pause. Karkat sighs.

“I JUST…” He starts, but is still seeming to try to find the right words. “I JUST DONT WANT THEM DATING THAT ASSHOLE ANYMORE. AFTER WHAT HAPPENED. I DONT CARE IF THEY WANT TO GO ON TOUR OR WHATEVER. WHO ARE WE TO STOP THEM IF THATS WHAT THEY REALLY WANT? BUT WE KNOW THIS SHIT IS ALL HIS IDEA. HE WANTS TO GO ON THAT TOUR SO HE CAN GET ALL THE PUBLICITY AND MONEY AND THEN HE’S GOING TO LEAVE THEM.”

“i know..” Dave frowns as he starts to rub Karkats back again. “but theyll definitely talk to us before they leave. theres no way they wouldnt.”

“BUT HOW DO WE KNOW THEY WONT STILL GO?”

“well they might. but i mean they have to at least believe us about him? ive got the video.”

“I DONT KNOW. THEY SEEMED SO FUCKING HELLBENT BEFORE ON NOT BELIEVING US. EVEN IF THEY WERE DRUNK.” He sneers, still bitter about the way you doubted them that night.

Dave is silent for another minute before he speaks again.

“you remember what the douche said to us right before he made that announcement about the tour?”

“HE SAID A LOT OF IDIOTIC BULLSHIT BEFORE THE ANNOUNCEMENT.” Karkat responds.

“yeah but i mean when he was saying that stuff about uh..” He pauses out of awkwardness of what he wanted to say next, not even sure if he should bring it up right now. “like.. that we should date them or whatever? he said we must have a thing for them.. but thats...”

He waits for Karkat to finish his sentence, thinking maybe he could get his opinion without having to directly ask. To no avail, however.

“THAT’S WHAT?”

“i dont know…” He blushes a little, turning his head to stare at the wall. “what did you think when he said that?”

“I THOUGHT… THAT THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE.”

“oh.. yeah? why impossible?”

“I MEAN WERE BOTH ALREADY IN A MATESPRITSHIP. TO ALSO BE IN A ROMANTIC QUADRANT WITH THEM IT’D HAVE TO BE BLACK ROMANCE. AND I FEEL FAR FROM BLACK FEELINGS FOR THEM SO...”

“i mean yeah. but are matespritships always with two people for trolls?”

“OF COURSE? THE ONLY QUADRANT INVOLVING MORE THAN ONE PERSON IS AUSPISTICISM USUALLY, UNLESS YOU HAVE FEELINGS FOR MORE THAN ONE PERSON FOR ONE QUADRANT BUT…”

“..but?”

“BUT THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING. YOU USUALLY ONLY HAVE ONE PERSON IN ANYTHING OTHER THAN AUSPISTICISM. I MEAN IVE NEVER HEARD OF MORE THAN TWO TROLLS IN ANY OTHER QUADRANT…” This thought seems to have him pondering hard about whether that would be sustainable. He had never considered it before, and surprisingly it had never been in any of his RomComs. He sits up a little to look at Dave, who turns his head to meet his gaze again. “DO HUMANS HAVE MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE IN YOUR ONLY QUADRANT?”

“i mean im probably like the last person to ask. hell if i know anything about human relationships, obviously i was never in one. but yeah im pretty sure people did that. polyamorous and like… quad.. amorous? i guess? no wait that doesnt sound right.” Dave now is pondering what the fuck a four way relationship is called, not to mention five, six, seven…

“DAVE. WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPLY?”

He snaps out of his thoughts. “huh? nothing.”

“NOTHING...” He's not convinced.

“i mean i was just thinking like… its weird that hes not the only person to have said something like that right? rose and kanaya asked us before and it made us super awkward. june and roxy asked me once.. dirk mentioned it but not even as a question he was just like ‘your two partners blah blah blah’ which totally threw me off? plus we never even talked about when they confessed to us that one night. we both know they have feelings for us but we never talked about how we feel about it. whats up with that?”

Karkat takes a moment to consider all of this. To be quite honest he hasn’t really thought about this subject in a lot of detail, but it is a little troubling. With everything happening lately, he's been realizing he's always felt for you the same he's things he's felt for Dave. You both meant a lot to him, and he cared for you both in the same way.

“THERES NOTHING ‘UP’ WITH IT, WE JUST HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO TALK ABOUT IT.”

“dude. we have literally nothing but time, all the time.”

“OKAY! FINE. LETS TALK ABOUT IT THEN.”

“okay.”

…

The silence is deafening.

“WELL?”

“what”

“YOU SAID YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!”

“okay yeah but-“

“THEN HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT (Y/N)? DO YOU HAVE FLUSHED FEELINGS FOR THEM? OR ARE THEY STRICTLY PALE?” Karkat suddenly asks bluntly.

Dave's pokerfaced for a beat, like he’s loading. “…how... do you feel about them?”

“MOTHERFUCKER I ASKED YOU FIRST!”

“yeah but! if i feel one way about them and you dont then thats kinda awkward… and its gonna be a problem later on right?.”

“FOR FUCKS SAKE.” He rolls his eyes. “FINE I…” He stops, starting to think hard again. He knows how he feels, but at the same time he's not sure. Having feelings for two people at once, like he said, is usually not seen as a good thing. It's normally conflicting and problematic. Granted, it's usually not a good thing for humans either. They're both struggling with the concept of polyamory.

“I… I DONT KNOW.”

“you dont know?”

“IVE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT OKAY!!”

“really. youve never thought about being in a relationship with (y/n)? like all of three us?”

“HAVE YOU?”

Dave purses his lips for a moment, thinking hard trying decide if he should just come out and say it.

“yeah. ive thought about it honestly.”

“OH.”

Karkat's short response suddenly makes Dave a little anxious, and he sits up a bit to get closer to him and make eye contact. “oh shit but you really havent?? fuck... im sorry i just meant because we all live together i just sometimes think ‘we all might as well just fuckin date with like how much we sit around together all day and-’ man im sorry-“

“ITS FINE DAVE I DIDN'T SAY IT WAS A BAD IDEA. RELAX YOU DIDN'T HURT MY PRECIOUS FEELINGS.”

“oh. right. okay.”

“I JUST MEANT THAT I NEVER… I MEAN I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO…” He groans at how much he struggles with talking about how he feels about this. “I THINK IVE ALWAYS HAD SOME TYPE OF RED FEELINGS… FOR BOTH OF YOU. BUT WHEN (Y/N) WAS GONE AND WE GOT CLOSER... IT JUST ENDED UP LIKE..”

“oh.”

“SORRY NO I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT.. I MEAN.. WELL OKAY ITS JUST-“

“its cool i get it.”

"YOU DO?"

"yeah of course."

Insert awkward pause of silence.

“so… we both feel the same way about them?”

“I GUESS SO?" He gives a troubled look. "BUT WOULD A RELATIONSHIP LIKE THAT REALLY WORK?”

“i dont fuckin know. but im sure we could figure out a way. weve already lived together this long.”

“YEAH. THATS TRUE.”

Dave chuckles a little. “fucked up that raels the motherfucker that made us finally talk about this shit.”

Karkat snickers back at this. “YEAH ITS THE ONLY THING HES BEEN GOOD FOR AT THIS FUCKIN POINT.”

They laugh for a bit before letting out a sigh of relief, all this finally being off their shoulders. Feels like a huge weight is gone.

“god. we really need to fuckin talk to them now.”

“YEAH NO SHIT.”

Dave picks up his phone from the couch, going into his contacts yet again to click on your name. He puts it on speaker.

It rings…

And rings…

And rings….

No response.

The phone goes to voicemail and Dave hangs up again.

“GOD FUCKING DAMNIT (Y/N). PICK UP THE PHONE!!”

And then, as if replying to him, the phone lights up with a text notification.

[ 1 New Message Notification: (y/n): ill be over in 5.]

The curtain closes again on Chapter 2, bringing it to a cliff-hanging END.

There are curtains this time. Imagine them. You’re imagining them, and they are closing.

See you soon for the finale!

#homestuck #homestuck fanfic #more than pale #dave strider x reader #karkat vantas x reader #karkat x reader #dave x reader #hs #homestuck 2 #dave x karkat #karkat x dave x reader #dave strider #karkat vantas #fanfiction #dave x karkat x reader #davekat #davekat x reader #sorry this is obnoxiously long

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thesolferino · 4 years

Text

Hell On Earth

⤷ dream x f!reader.

⤷ genre: fluff

⤷ word count: 3.2k

⤷ requested: yes, by this lovely anon!

— summary: you barge into clay’s office to complain about his broken air conditioner, unaware that he’s streaming.

Florida was hell.

You liked to say it as a joke, during October when the rest of the world was freezing, during December when the insane temperatures finally went back under control, and the sun granted you its blessing of a refreshing gust of wind every now and then. You liked to say it as a joke, mostly, but God, did you mean it whenever summer would creep around the corner and you’d get reminded of why you told your boyfriend so often that the devil must’ve left hell, came down to America, and bought himself a nice penthouse in Florida.

It lived up to its title of the hottest state in the US, by far, considering the hellish temperatures that constantly made you dizzy whenever June rolled around. You had great air conditioning in your apartment, though, and as soon as the sun started burning skin, plants, water, and everything in its way, you and your college roommate would lounge at your place as the air conditioner blew cold wind and thank the lord (and the person who invented AC, bless his heart) for providing you with at least one blessing during these trying times.

So, of course that as soon as summer came about, your air conditioning conveniently broke.

Your roommate was out of the apartment within two days, flying to her family in Wisconsin, bidding you farewell as she left you to cook like a raw chicken in your shared apartment. Thankfully, you had a boyfriend - and what a boyfriend he was.

You don’t like to brag, but at these moments, you feel grateful to the universe and whoever else is looking over you for providing you with a rich boyfriend, with quite a big, echo-y house, and air conditioning made of pure heaven. As soon as your roommate packed your bags, you packed yours too, - if one backpack filled with makeup, your laptop, meds, underwear and hopes that he’d let you steal all of his clothes could count as “bags” - locked the apartment and left, ready to leave the AC on snowman temperature for two days minimum and ignore all his complaints.

Bad luck seemed to follow you everywhere, though, because you were there for merely three days when the air conditioning started stuttering.

You were sprawled on the cold sheets of his bed, listening to the low hum of the AC as you scrolled through your phone, his white T-shirt sticking to your back, the cold air cooling the sheen of sweat that covered your body, leaving goosebumps all over. One of your fingers started lazily petting Patches’ stomach, and you could faintly hear Clay talking in the background, the sounds coming from his office.

“Thank you for the gifted subs! Um, yeah, it’s really hot here, I can barely, like, breathe in here. I have the AC on at highest, but all it’s doing is giving me a headache. Even-even my water bottle is completely hot.” You heard him rant and chuckled, turning on your side and continuing to scroll through random videos.

You sort of tuned out his talking, knowing he’d most likely be cooped up in that office for hours before your shared dinner, and started watching random YouTube videos, ignoring your surroundings as you shoved your earbuds in your ears.

The longer the videos lasted, the more you felt like you were suffocating. The heat crawled up on you slowly, sneakily, almost unnoticeable yet undeniably there, hand made up of pure fire gripping at your throat tighter and tighter. It started off seamlessly, with you rolling around, trying to find a new cold spot on the sheets, to pulling at the shirt, trying to create cold air to soothe you, to wiping the sweat that basically covered your entire forehead, when your eyes finally peeled away from your phone and you realised you were basically choking in the heat, feeling like you’re breathing fire.

You lift your head off the bed way too quickly, head pounding, and look at the one thing meant to save you from this madness - just to see it leaking water down the wall, barely coughing out any air. Your head miserably falls back down on the bed, hands rubbing at your face, dangerously close to both crying and screaming in distress. After a few moments of self-wallowing, you get up and make your way over to your boyfriend’s office, being met with nothing but silence as you walked to it, happy he ended the stream so you could complain and wail to him, possibly cool down using the AC in his office.

You slam the door open, seeing him hunched over in his gaming chair, Minecraft open as usual, and as soon as he takes one headphone off, turns around and sends a surprised but oddly panicked gaze your way, you start ranting.

“Babe, you won’t believe what just happened.” you said, rubbing a hand over your face again, eyes closing as you feel the coldness - in comparison to the living hell that was his bedroom right now - of the room wash over you. You don’t even let him speak before you continue.

“The fucking AC in your bedroom just broke. It’s leaking right now.”

Clay looks like he wants to say fifteen words at once, and the first one that comes out is: “What?”

“I swear. I was watching something on my phone, and I realised it’s crazy hot, so I looked up and realised it’s broken. Why does this happen to me!” you complained, and he tried pulling his headphones off for a second but instead pulled the cord out of the computer entirely, letting you hear everything that goes on in his headphones.

It’s silent for a second or two, before you hear a familiar voice.

“Dream.” you hear a British man with an awfully posh accent speak, and your eyes meet Clay’s in pure horror and realisation, when you slap a hand over your mouth. He looks as equally terrified as you, but also disappointed, because oh, that’s why he looked so panicked when you stormed in.

Then you hear another voice, equally British, but higher pitched. They laugh. “Is that Drista?”

Clay seems to snap back into reality, turning around towards the computer and adjusting his mic before speaking. “No- it’s- Tommy she said babe, why would Drista call me babe?”

“You’re so stupid, he was trying to help you.” You hear his long-time friend, Sapnap, deadpan, and you can practically feel all of them freaking out, while you stand in the doorway in horror, cheeks heating up despite the fully working AC.

Another laugh. “No, I wasn’t, I was genuinely asking. Why- Sapnap, why would I be helping Dream?”

“Dream, you are so stupid.” you hear George laugh into his mic and your boyfriend immediately starts stuttering, trying to defend himself.

“How-how am I stupid?! She’s the one who walked in, what was I supposed to do?” you lean against the doorway as he defends himself, head buried in one of your hands.

“Mute!” you hear Sapnap borderline yell, almost mad.

“Wait- I don’t get what’s going on- Does Big D have a girlfriend?” you hear the British boy, Tommy, ask, and all of them go silent for a few seconds before a loud, screeching laugh breaks out through the speakers, and when Clay turns around to look at you, all you can do is mouth an apology as you almost break out into laughter at how ridiculous the whole thing is.

“Oh my God, chat is going crazy right now.” George says while Tommy is laughing his lungs out in the background, still.

“Did you actually- did she actually- oh my GOD, Dream has a girlfriend! I can’t believe this!” Tommy keeps on laughing, coughing between sentences. “Dream stans, I am so sorry, this must be just a terrible, terrible day for you all.”

“You’re probably already trending on Twitter, dude.” Sapnap adds, sounding more worried than your own boyfriend did at the moment.

“It was bound to happen at some point, I guess.” he huffs out, turning around to look at you every so often, gesturing for you to close the door and come in, which you did, guilt weighing you down as you moved.

“Are you serious? Can I- Can I speak to your girlfriend, Dream?” you can practically hear the grin in the boy’s voice and Clay doesn’t even turn to you before replying.

“No, you can’t.”

“Oh, come on! You let me speak to your mum but not your girlfriend? Just for a little bit, please? I just- I just wanna see which lucky woman managed to get the attention of the Minecraft God, Dream himself. That’s it.” Tommy asks and you don’t even have it in you to laugh because of the anxiety that eats away at you, but then Clay sighs.

“...Fine, I guess.” he looks up at you. “D’you wanna speak to Tommy?”

You’re not quite sure what the expected answer is, but you shrug, gaze darting from his eyes to the computer, and then back to him. “Um… I don’t mind, I guess.”

You hear him sigh and plug the headphones back into the computer, handing them to you. “Alright, she said yes. Here you go.” he stands up out of the chair and lets you sit, placing the way too big headphones on your head as your heart races, standing closely by your side as you roll the chair further towards the desk and microphone.

“Um… hello?” you shyly speak, and you hear something like groans of mixed annoyance, confusion and nervousness coming from George and Sapnap as Tommy starts laughing immediately, greeting you loudly.

“HELLO, DREAM’S GIRLFRIEND!” you hear him yell in response as your shaky hands land on the keyboard, moving his character left and right.

“Is the AC really broken?” Sapnap asks and you hear George laugh in response, considering how unimportant that information is right now. You know both of them, obviously - you’ve talked to them more than a few times, joining in on their jokes when Clay talks to them on speaker, growing as close as one can with their boyfriend’s friends.

“Yeah, it is. The AC in here is really good, though. Maybe I should stay and just take over the Dream channel.” You joke and they laugh.

“Yeah, I mean it would probably be better. A woman owning the Dream channel would make it so much better. The views would skyrocket.” Tommy says and you see his character walk up to you before he randomly laughs again.

“I can’t believe- I can’t believe Dream actually has a girlfriend. Is he, like, paying you to do this, or are you really…” he trails off and you giggle at his question, switching tools in the hotbar as you try to figure out how to play the game again.

“No, he’s not. We are dating, yes.” you confirm with a nod, and you feel Clay’s elbow sink into the chair, almost trying to listen.

“Say 1 if he’s keeping you hostage.” he says and you laugh again, shaking your head.

“No, he’s not- he’s not keeping me hostage.” you reply and you hear Clay go “WHAT?” right behind you.

“Well, of course, of course, I mean, who could ever pass up dating the great Dream. With all those subscribers, and Twitch primes, and Minecraft skills. Did- did his Minecraft skills get you?” Tommy asked, but before you could even respond, Sapnap jumped into the conversation.

“Oh yes, absolutely. She loves it. Yes, Dream, speedrun faster!” he sarcastically replies and for a few moments the whole call is blown into loud laughter, screeching and yells before it quiets down.

“Yes, what Sapnap said. I was so impressed, he just blew me away, with um… with his, um, Manhunt skills? I dunno, I don’t play Minecraft.” you hear him laugh at “Manhunt skills” behind you as the rest of the boys start laughing too.

“Dream’s girlfriend doesn’t play Minecraft?! What?! Dream- how could he allow this, seriously…” Tommy argued dramatically, his character staring at yours - or rather Clay’s.

“I can’t imagine if we were both Minecraft players, that would be a nightmare.” you replied.

“Why?” you heard George laugh through the headphones.

“Who do you think peels him away from the damn computer? If I was just like him we would never get out of the house, probably.” you argued.

“Dreamfriend, what is Dream like, you know, in real life?” Tommy spoke up and you heard George giggle again.

“Dreamfriend?” you repeated, a grin forming on your face at his stupidity, finally deciding to move the character around and switch back to the sword in the hotbar.

“Yes! Dream’s girlfriend, Dreamfriend, Dreamgirl, Girldream, whatever you like.” Tommy said and you laughed.

“Dream girl… if I wanted to get clout off Dream I’d use that, that’s genius.”

“Thanks, I know I’m a genius, everyone tells me so.” Tommy claims and you shake your head, checking your boyfriend’s inventory to see if there’s anything interesting in there.

“Alright, I’m gonna check on the AC, I’ll be back in a second.” Clay says to you, before lowering himself to the mic so the boys could hear him. “Tommy, don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“Oh you know it, big man! I’d never!” Tommy yells back, despite Clay being unable to hear him, and he leaves the office with one last, quick kiss to your temple.

“Is he gone?” Tommy asks, and you nod and hum, despite him not being able to see you.

“Okay, so you don’t play Minecraft, right?” he asks.

“No, I don’t.” you reply.

“So there’s this really cool thing, right. If you just go in and type /op tommyinnit, there’s this thing that’s gonna-” Tommy doesn’t get to finish his sentence before he’s cut off by Sapnap, whose character suddenly appears in front of you.

“No, no, no, no, don’t trust him, you should-” Sapnap cuts in, but Tommy still loudly protests in the background.

“BE NICE TO OUR GUEST, SAPNAP! Let her do what she wants! She is Dream’s girlfriend after all, the most powerful woman.” Tommy claims and you laugh, sort of blushing from all the attention. You don’t even dare to check the chat or the donations that come in from Twitch, because it must be blowing up by now. As if he can hear your thoughts, George speaks too.

“Oh my God, Dream’s already trending on, like, five different spots on Twitter.” he says, and you instinctively grab your phone to check, before you can even think about it.

“What?” you and Sapnap both say in sync.

“Yeah, ‘Dream’ is trending #2 worldwide, and ‘Dream girlfriend’ is #4.” he lets out a shocked laugh.

“Oh my God…” you mutter out in both excitement, nervousness and dread as you open Twitter and confirm that George is indeed correct. You don’t even dare to press on either of the trends, simply turning off your phone with a sigh and moving back to stream.

“Wow, you’re famous now! How does it feel?” Tommy asks and you let out a quite dry laugh.

“Amazing. I can feel my value as a person increasing as we speak.” you respond sarcastically and hear George quietly laugh in the background.

Just then, you hear the door to the office opening again, but you ignore it because Tommy starts speaking.

“Okay, well, I’m sure that must be very fun and exciting for you, but I really will need you to type in /op tommyinn-”

“No! I’m not listening to you, Tommy! I’m not about to type in some stupid command and get yelled at!” you cut in, but he keeps on whining.

“Come on, we know Big D would never yell at his… beloved girlfriend! Listen, just do it, I promise he will not be mad.” he argues.

“What does /op even mean?” you ask out loud, and suddenly Clay is yelling behind you.

“Who is asking you to op them? Give me the headset!” he says, one hand already tugging at the headphones as you laugh while Tommy panics.

“Well, it was fun talking to you guys, but I have to go. Bye!” you bid them farewell and heard George and Sapnap say goodbye as well while Tommy yelled, and you took off the headphones and passed them to Clay who immediately put them on and adjusted them, plopping back into the chair. You left, moving to the living room to process everything that happened and abandon your phone for the next few hours because you were not ready for that type of attention in the slightest.

You laid in front of the TV, watching random shows on Netflix and grabbing a few snacks from the kitchen while you could still clearly hear him yelling and streaming, wondering how he’s still going as if nothing happened. The temptation to check what people were saying was overwhelming to the point your hands were itching to grab your phone and open all social media - before you even realised it, you were on the trending page again, thumb tapping on the “Dream girlfriend” tab.

You braced yourself for the worst, but that’s not what came at you - sure, there were a couple of tweets telling people to lay off you, and delusional shippers getting ratioed, but they were mostly positive, lighthearted jokes, from single people making jokes about how a Minecraft YouTuber can get bitches but they can’t, to people calling you cute/funny. One hate comment obviously stings more than a million positive comments make you happy, but they were mostly misogynists calling you annoying for the roughly five sentences you spoke on stream or shippers disappointed that their favorite YouTuber isn’t gay, so you didn’t really let it get to you.

When the house finally quieted down the sun was lowering itself into darkness and melting into a pot of blinding orange and golden honey, and you heard Clay’s footsteps when he finally turned off the stream, stepping into the living room a few seconds after you heard him. He sat down on the couch next to you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you close to him, sitting there in silence with you.

“So… that was something.” he finally broke the silence and you nodded.

“It really was.”

Another beat of silence passes.

“I’m sorry, baby, but I really need you to stop breaking all these ACs.”

“I’M NOT THE ONE BREAKING THEM-”

“Sorry, but I’m noticing a pattern here.” he wheezed, obviously just trying to get you riled up as you pulled away so his hand gets ripped off your shoulder.

“Shut up. You better have called someone to repair that damn thing, cause there is no way we’re sleeping in there without an AC.” you huffed, and he shuffled closer to you, arm wrapping itself around your shoulders once again.

“I did, they’re coming by tomorrow.” he assured.

“Tomorrow?” you asked, looking at him in disbelief. “How are we gonna sleep tonight?”

“Who says we have to sleep?” the glint in his eye and the stupid grin plastered on his face tells you everything you need to know, and you roll your eyes.

“If we fuck, I’ll actually die of overheating. Absolutely not.”

“Well in that case, I need to get that AC fixed as soon as possible.”

#dream x reader #dreamwastaken x reader #dream imagine #dream fluff #dreamwastaken imagine #dreamwastaken fluff #dream x y/n #dreamwastaken x y/n #dream x you #dreamwastaken x you #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #mcyt fluff

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youbloodymadgenius · 3 years

Text

Ivarello (Modern!Ivar x reader) Chapter 3

Moodboard by @quantumlocked310

Ivarello's masterpost here

A/N: This is my entry for @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie 500 Followers Fairy Tale Challenge. It's a retelling of Cinderella. Congrats again, darling 💖

A huge thank you to @mrsalwayswrite , who's a great beta reader and an even greater cheerleader 😂

A massive thank you to @quantumlocked310 , @vikingstrash and @serasvictoria . Thank you for agreeing to collaborate and for sharing your talent with me. Your moodboards are beyond amazing 🤩

In this story, Sigurd is alive. Ragnar and Aslaug are dead, but Lagertha didn't kill her. I took a lot of liberties with the show, I hope you won't mind.

Unlike the tale, there will be no magic involved. Not everything will be realistic, however. It's a fayritale, after all!

Let me know if you want to be tagged 😊

Summary: Orphaned five years ago, Ivar and his brothers have been living with Lagertha ever since. Now 16 years old, he wants to attend Harald's traditional Midsummer party, but obstacles stand in his way.

Warnings: description of car crash; orphaned kids; Sigurd being Sigurd; OOC characters.

Words: 3497 (oops 🙈)

Additional note: what you’re going to read is not realistic.

Enjoy 🙂

🛡⚔️🛡

With his stomach in knots and a frown on his face, Ivar watches closely his godfather, who enters the living-room, wheeling a large trolley case behind him.

"Hello, Ivar." Floki looks around, an eyebrow raised questioningly, "Lagertha isn't here?", before flopping down on the corner sofa.

"No," Ivar shakes his head, wheeling up next to him, "She's out on a date with this English guy... Hammond, Halmund or whatever his name is."

Scratching his ear, Floki tilts his head, "but she knows you're going, right?" He pulls the trolley case closer and then snorts, mumbling under his breath, "don't think I can't see you rolling your eyes!"

"What do you think? Of course, she knows. She said, and I quote," Ivar raises his hands to make air quotes, his voice tinged with obvious annoyance, "'Of course you can go, sweetie, you know I don't want to be the one holding you back. Call me if anything goes wrong. And don't forget to take your meds.'"

"She cares, Ivar." Floki's tone is soft as he places a hand on his godson's shoulder.

Ivar lowers his gaze. "You should have taken me in." His words are barely audible and suddenly he feels like he's eleven again and he has to swallow against the sudden dryness in his throat.

"You do know that back then I wasn't in a good place." Floki's sad sigh almost gets Ivar in tears as memories of his parents and Helga flood his mind. The pain in his heart becomes nearly unbearable but he fights it off with all his might. He never wants to feel broken and lost again.

Ivar lifts his head up and Floki can see the stubbornness in his eyes. "I could live with you now."

"No, you could not, and you know it!" Floki smiles and taps Ivar on the cheek. "Ivar, I live between two flights, today in Norway, yesterday in Iceland and after-tomorrow in Canada. What kind of life would this be for you, huh? And besides, living with Lagertha is not that bad."

But living with Sigurd is! Ivar wants to shout. He keeps quiet, though, shrugging before eventually mumbling. "Guess not..."

"So," Floki starts, eager to change the subject, "where are your brothers, by the way?"

"Where do you think they are, huh, you knock-kneed fool? They're already there." Ivar glances at his watch, furrowing his brow. "Harald's party started twenty minutes ago."

"We better hurry up, then!" Crouching down, Floki slowly opens the suitcase under Ivar's scrutinizing gaze.

"Quick!" Ivar commands, barely able to contain his impatience, his nervous fingers tapping his push rims. "What do you have for me, old man, huh?" He even contemplates climbing out of his chair to open it himself, but the fear of breaking a bone at the worst possible time is stronger than his eagerness.

"You're going to calm down, young Padawan." Floki quips, slowly moving his hand in front of Ivar with eyes full of mischief. Ivar immediately slaps his godfather's hand away, mumbling under his breath, "I'd rather be a Sith Lord." That earns him a loud, hysterical laugh from his godfather.

Ivar grunts, ready to protest, but all thoughts leave his mind as soon as he's able to see what is in the trolley case. The scowl on his face obvious, he doesn't even try to hide his disappointment as he utters, "you made me braces?"

He hates braces with a passion. Along with underarm crutches, he had some, as a child. They were bulky, stiff, painful and walking with them was tedious, agonizingly slow, and exhausting. Ragnar had been adamant that he wanted his youngest to walk, no matter the struggles, no matter the nearly unbearable pain. Ivar had settled his ass in a wheelchair the day of his father's funeral, getting rid of his braces shortly after, a decision he had never regretted. So no, such torture devices were not at all what he was hoping for.

"Have a little faith in me," Floki rolls his eyes. "These," he looks lovingly at the strange contraptions in his hands, "are not braces, Ivar. Have you and your crippled ass ever heard of exoskeleton?"

Ivar's eyes widen. "It's that thing used in rehab that allows paraplegics to walk, right?" As Floki nods, Ivar gives him a puzzled glance. "But, erm, you do know I don't have a spinal cord injury, don't you? Or are you suffering from memory loss? Maybe it's your age?"

Dismissing the remark with an exasperated wave of his hand, Floki hisses, "I'm well aware that you don't, godson dearest," before narrowing his eyes, his voice now serious, "you may have full sensation in both legs, yet they can't exactly support your weight and your lack of motor function can't be denied. Not really different from some paraplegic dudes, what do you think?"

Feeling a heavy lump in his throat, Ivar frowns, not pleased with the idea of him being like a paraplegic. Almost without thinking, he contracts his quads as best he can, as if he wants to make sure he's still able to do it.

Floki doesn't miss the barely-there movements in his thighs, though, and his voice softens. "Look Ivar, you're not a paraplegic, okay? But I used the exoskeleton technology. And since you're not paralyzed, I was able to make a smaller device that you can wear underneath your clothes, and you're going to walk. I mean, really walk, not just like those guys in rehab, between parallels bars and with a PT right behind them."

Ivar, his eyes bright, stares at his godfather, slack-jawed with amazement. "I'm..." He begins to sputter, voice filled with emotion, "I'm really going to walk?" Feeling like his heart is pounding out of his chest, he fails to contain his excitement, drumming the fingers of his right hand on his lap. He'd tap his feet if only he could.

"You are." Floki nods before taking out of the trolley case a pair of dress shoes. "I put dozens of sensors in the insole of these shoes, which will enable the exoskeleton to correct your stance practically every second. Therefore, you won't need crutches, although I would say it's safer for you to use this." Reaching down, he grabs a black derby-style cane, simple and sleek in design. "You know," he shrugs, "just for extra support. Better safe than sorry, hmh?"

Ivar, who doesn't even flinch when he sees the walking stick, just reaches out, his hand grazing the carbon fiber exoskeleton. "Is it really for me?" His eyes filled with wonder, his voice trembling, his lips stretch across his face as his godfather nods. "And you made this in what?... four, five days?"

Letting out his signature giggle, Floki waggles his fingers in front of his face. "Even I couldn't make this in such a short time. No, the truth is, I've been working on it for a while. Let's say your phone call just sped things up. Though I must say, this marvel of technology is not flawless... It has a really low battery life, like four hours of autonomy at best. If I had more time, I certainly could have done better, but for now, it is what it is and you'll have to make do with what you've got." Pursing his lips, he glances at his watch, "So, just so you know, if you put this on now, you'll have to come back around midnight if you don't want to have to crawl around. And if you hear a beep, you'd better hurry, okay?"

As Ivar just nods, his beaming smile never fading, Floki adds, tilting his head, "and now, go get ready, young Padawan, you have a party to attend!"

***

Sitting on a bench at the seaside, Ivar watches the party from afar, a feeling of uneasiness tightening his chest. It was a mistake. Attending to this party was a mistake. Despite the exoskeleton, despite the fact that he walks almost normally, it was a mistake. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't be here. Anxiety surges like the swell of a wave, and he struggles to breathe. Sigurd was right: he doesn't belong here, doesn't belong to this life.

A part of him wants to leave. It would be better to run away, to go hide in his room. But he won't. He can't. Because just a moment ago he saw you. Because he's not ready to give up on you now that he is here, eventually close to you.

He recognized you the moment his eyes fell on you. Looking radiant in a polka dot dress, you're as pretty as he remembers. Pretty? Who's he kidding? The girl you were six years ago was pretty. You're a woman now, and one of the most beautiful he's ever seen.

Glowing, smiling at everyone, you didn't even see him. In his head, of course, he makes plans to approach you, even if deep down, he knows all too well he'll never muster enough courage to talk to you. You probably wouldn't want him to anyway. After all, he may be standing tall today, yet he's still a freak, a fucking cripple. He's still cursed with his bony, twisted, useless legs. He's still a burden.

Yet, there's this little voice inside of him, barely audible, whispering that you're not like this, that you never were in the first place; and that's partly why the ten-year-old boy he was when he first met you felt drawn to you almost instantly.

Closing his eyes, he focuses on his breathing and decides to take a little trip down memory lane, bringing him back to that sunny, summer day of his first – and only – encounter with you. His memory so vivid it's like it happened only yesterday.

He can't hear the chirping of birds as his brothers are loudly playing and bickering in the pool. His beloved mother is nowhere to be seen and he's willing to bet she's taking a nap, but not without first making sure he has everything he could possibly need. Lying on a sunbed in the shade of an oak, a glass of lemonade within reach and a thick book on his lap, he hardly notices his father coming into the backyard, Harald Hårfager following close behind.

Since Ivar knows Harald is here to talk business with his father, he pays no attention to the two men, who take their seats at the patio dining table.

He nearly falls off the sunbed when a tiny voice startles him. "Hello!"

Stunned, he turns his head towards the voice and comes face to face with a smiling girl he doesn't know. You. He'd say you're about his age.

"I'm Y/N," you tell him, waving your hand shyly. "I'm at my uncle's for the weekend," you keep going, pointing your finger at Harald, "and I was wondering... May I join you?" You finally ask, dragging a second sunbed closer to his.

His first instinct is to look around, because you can't possibly be talking to him. Why would you? Surely you can't have failed to spot his leg braces, nor his hideous orthopedic shoes. You can't have missed that he's a cripple.

Frowning as he sees that no one is around, he snorts, his nostrils flaring. He can tell you're wearing a swimsuit under your pink dress. What do you want, then? Are you here to mock and ridicule him or what?

"You better get in the pool with my brothers." He knows he sounds rude, not answering nor greeting you, but he doesn't care. He doesn't want to be made fun of and doesn't intend to give you the chance to do it.

Seemingly undeterred, you speak with a soft voice. "No, I'd rather not." Your smile is so genuine he can't help but think you mean no harm. "Actually," you shrug, sitting next to him, "I'd rather stay here with you, if you don't mind. What are you reading?"

Gobsmacked, he just looks at you – and gods, how pretty you are! – for a long time, unable to utter a single word. Are you truly interested in what he's reading? Interested in him? He swallows hard, his heart racing. A small smile dancing on your lips, your kind eyes never leave his as you wait, full of hope, for him to finally talk to you.

And that's what he ends up doing, almost in spite of himself. For the next two hours, he shows you his astronomy book, a gift from his godfather for his tenth birthday, and tells you about the stars, the constellations and the nights he spends watching the sky, when his mother allows him to. And for two hours you listen to him, asking a question here or there and always smiling. He's pretty sure you're not faking being interested in what he's saying.

All too soon, your uncle tells you it's time to go and you stand up with a scowl, letting out a sigh of regret. The next moment, you flash Ivar a grin. "I had a really great time with you, thanks! I'm going back to my mom's tomorrow but I hope we can spend time together again sometime, maybe next summer. I'd love to stargaze with you, you know?" With that, you lean forward and as your lips touch his cheek, Ivar's breath catches in his throat, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest.

Ivar inhales deeply. That kiss... That's when he fell madly and hopelessly in love with you. If he concentrates enough, he can still feel the softness of your lips against his skin, still smell your sweet, flowery scent.

That day, he had watched you leave with a smile on your face, already dreaming of the day he would see you again. You had said "next summer" and even though it was a long time away, he was willing to wait. In the meantime, he would have plenty of memories to recall - your joyful voice, your sparkling eyes, your lovely smile... Sure, he could wait.

And he had waited, hopeful and happier than he had been in a long time.

Not long after, however, his life had been turned upside down, his father being murdered and his mother dying in a car crash. Lost, angry, broken, and infinitely sad, he had gone through the following months as if anesthetized - barely living, hardly functioning, sometimes feeling as if the memory of you was the only thing keeping him from drowning.

Yet, and he doesn't know why – or perhaps simply because Ragnar being dead, Harald had no reason to visit anymore – he had never seen you again.

"Hello!"

His whole body freezes and he stops breathing. This voice... Your voice... He'd know it anywhere. Yet, it can't be, right? Did he fall asleep? Is he dreaming? Is one of his brothers tricking him? Why would you talk to the cripple?

"My name is Y/N." He can hear the smile in your voice. "I was wondering... May I join you?"

Summoning the courage he's not sure he has, Ivar looks tentatively toward you.

Gods! You're even more beautiful up close. Fuck. Now that you're here, right next to him, he doesn't know what to say, what to do. Panic seizes his hammering heart as a lump rises in his throat. He attempts to swallow around it to speak, to say something, anything, but the words won't come out and he finally just nods, his hand gesturing to the bench for you to sit on.

"Thanks," you give him a broad smile before taking your seat.

Ivar cannot believe his eyes. What are you doing? Did you recognize him? Why are you here, with him?

"Woul–", he sputters, struggling to find his voice, "Wouldn't you rather be there?" Pointing his index finger at the crowd gathered in front of the makeshift stage just a few meters away. He frowns, tilting his head, "the party is in full swing."

"No, I'd rather not." You shrug and as you turn your head toward him, he breathes in your sweet scent, suddenly feeling dizzy. "The guys are already drunk and really have one thing on their minds. And those who are not are boring." You lower your gaze, as if embarrassed, and it's so adorable Ivar feels like his heart is melting. "I'd rather stay here with you, if you don't mind."

Oh, he doesn't. He doesn't mind at all. The truth is, there's a fucking firework inside of him, and he barely contains the screams of happiness that threaten to escape his lips. "That's okay, you can stay," he says instead, his fidgeting fingers dancing on his lap.

Over the next hour or so, the conversation flows easily as you speak about Karasjok, the small town where you live, telling him about your mother's people, the Sami, their culture and customs.

Ivar shares with you bits and pieces of his life too, speaking about his passion for the Viking culture and about his belief in the ancient gods. The night, his night, is full of your laughs, full of your smiles, full of you. He wants it to never end.

He's still trying to figure out if you know who he is, if you remember meeting him once when you rise to your feet, almost bouncing with enthusiasm. "Walk with me, will you?"

He's about to break the truth about his inability to walk when he remembers that actually, thanks to Floki, he can. His eyes never leave yours as he grabs his cane with a little bit of self-consciousness, wincing as he stands up, but he can't see disgust, contempt, or disappointment on your face and your smile doesn't falter as you delicately slip your hand under his free arm, curling your fingers back over it. Shaken by your sudden proximity, Ivar feels goosebumps rising on his skin.

"It's such a lovely night and I'm so happy spending it with you."

Your words leave him speechless as you lead him close to the water. A bunch of guys can be seen in the distance and Ivar is pretty sure his brothers are among them. He can feel their heavy stares on him and doesn't need to hear them to know what they're saying. "Who's this dude? Do we know him?" Standing tall, with his braided hair and a blue suit, he knows he doesn't look like himself. Yet, as he locks eyes with Hvitserk for a second, he'd sworn he sees a hint of recognition crossing his brother's face. And as the latter gives him a thumbs up, he knows his mind is not playing tricks with him.

"Oh, I love this song!" You clap your hands twice before shrugging shyly. "Let's dance, please!"

Ivar's heart breaks. Scared out of his wits, he swallows hard, his breathing uneven. "I... I can't." It's a painful admission, and he wishes the ground would just swallow him up.

He realizes you pay no mind to his defeated tone, though, as you grab his cane, leaning it against a nearby tree. "We'll go slow, I promise."

Almost in spite of himself, he places his hands on your hips as you wrap your arms around his neck. Gently – cautiously – swaying to the music, Ivar leans in close and, inhaling deeply your delightful scent, he feels like he's going to spontaneously combust. Your head resting on his chest, he's sure you can hear his frantic, pounding heartbeat. But he can't bring himself to care, not when you're finally exactly where he wants you to be. In his arms.

That's why he doesn't hear the first beep, or if he does, he doesn't pay any attention, entranced by your beauty, your kindness and the mesmerizing color of your eyes.

But when you stop dancing, your eyebrows raised, "What's that beeping noise? It doesn't stop," he hears it too, cold sweats washing over him as panic courses through his body.

"I... I must... I must go," he stammers, and honestly he's about to throw up. He can't think, can't speak. All he knows is that he doesn't want you seeing him crawling around. He won't allow it. He can't.

Fuck.

That's why he leaves. He just strolls off. He doesn't see the appalled look you're giving him, doesn’t' realize he's leaving his black cane behind, doesn't hear the despair in your tone as you shout, "wait, please! I don't even know your name!"

He has only taken a few steps when crocodile tears run down his cheeks, blurring his sight. It hurts so much he could scream, and he can barely breathe as the realization starts to sink in. Who was he trying to fool? Sigurd had been right all along. No matter the exoskeleton, no matter the genius of his godfather, he's still a freak. A monster. An abnormality.

He doesn't belong. He's not worthy.

Fuck.

His heart shatters in a thousand pieces.

Fuck.

Y/N.

Fuck.

🛡⚔️🛡

Ivar's taglist: @waiting4inspiration @honestsycrets @lisinfleur @saldelys @gearhead66 @inforapound @readsalot73 @milkkygirls @xbellaxcarolinax @shannygoatgruff @zuxiezendler @hecohansen31 @lonewolf471 @fuckindiva @tgrrose @didiintheblog @peachyboneless @pieces-by-me @funmadnessandbadassvikings @ethereallysimple @destynelseclipsa @cocovikings23 @xceafh @mrsalwayswrite @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie @pomegranates-and-blood @jadelynlace @grimeundglow @quantumlocked310 @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom @adrille88

Ivarello's taglist: @not-another-viking-fanfic-blog @hashimily @prepare4trouble @supernaturalvikingwhore @funmadnessandbadassvikings @heavenly1927 @dini73

#ivar #modern ivar #modern!ivar #modern-ivar #modern ivar x reader #modern!ivar x reader #ivar x reader #ivar the boneless #ivar ragnarsson #ivar imagine #ivar fic #ivar fanfic #ivar fanfiction #ivar vikings #vikings ivar #cherrypie’s500 #fairytale retelling #ivarello

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anika-ann · 4 years

Text

One Door Closes... (S.R.)

Type: one-shot, pretty much canon

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 2700

Summary: For Steve, your door is always open... or he thinks so. And even when it isn’t, it is.

In which one small Zoom mishap leads to an (un)usual ‘welcome home’.

Warnings: brief mention of blood and violence, lightest angst, attempt at humour, crack-ish, fluff and language

A/N: For @anjali750, because this is totally her fault. Thank you for inspiring me :-* Have a little bit silly weekend reading, y’all!

“Tell me about it,” Steve encouraged you gently, soft smile playing in the corner of his mouth despite the pain it must be causing him due to his busted lip.

You couldn’t but grin at the lenient picture he made. Feeling blood rush to your cheeks at the thought of him probably calling you cute in his mind if his expression was anything to go by, you obliged, proceeding to tell him about the new project at work.

Your project. Because somehow, you finally earned your boss’ confidence and could bring the great ideas in your mind to life.

You felt so giddy just talking about it! So you started explaining, excitedly gesturing with your hands so Steve would get the right visual and you grew so enthusiastic that you almost forgot to keep an eye on him.

But you were watching him – always.

His lower lip was split, but already healing – it would have healed much faster if he stopped tugging at the healing skin whenever he talked or smiled at you from the screen. He looked a little drowsy, a shadow of a bruise forming on his cheek, but as far as you knew, those were the only injuries he had; that and many hours of sleep to catch up on.

Steve had a habit of calling you via Zoom whenever he got back to the Tower from a mission. He usually took a quick shower and was online until the last second before he had to leave for a debriefing; the only reason why he didn’t head straight to your place.

He admitted once that he loved seeing your face and talking to you even if for a moment after a mission, that it grounded him. On a very sappy and loveable moment, he even called you his sun; and the fact that after few minutes of being with you – as much as technology allowed – his face always seemed brighter, made you think that it truly was how he felt.

Even exhausted as he was now, you could tell his half-lidded eyes shined with life unlike when you started the call.

And so you kept rambling, feeling your heart bursting with love for your man and with euphoria, because goddammit, finally some recognition at work!

“Well, obviously, to reach as much general public as we can, we’re gonna launch a world-wide campaign! World-wide!” you emphasized with a blinding grin, throwing your hands wide to demonstrate.

---and your fingers caught in a cord from the laptop, pulling at it.

Steve’s benevolent face disappeared as your screen went black.

Because of course it did.

You had been talking yourself into buying a new laptop or at least having this one fixed for a few weeks now, because this was always the result whenever you accidently unplugged it. The battery was useless, ready to retire.

“Motherfu--- ugh!“

You wanted to be mad at the device – but this was totally on you.

Sighing, you hooked up the laptop again, waiting for it to wake up from a coma, shooting Steve an apologetic text in the meantime. Closing your eyes, you let your forehead lightly fall against your desk, mentally cursing yourself.

Dummy. If you only weren’t so lazy… and didn’t hate certain aspects of adulting with so much passion… you could have been talking to Steve-

Your eyes flew opened when it felt like it was quiet for too long; no reply to your text. Dread filled you and you quickly reached for your phone again, this time to dial.

You prayed you were wrong; but as the phone kept ringing with no one to answer it on the other end, you felt misery creep up you back and whimpered. Sliding your phone on the tabletop, your not-so-deft fingers stumbled over the keyboard, harshly welcoming it into the world of living by opening Zoom again to reconnect the call.

Your breath hitched in anticipation as the window opened---

An amused and yet somehow unimpressed face of Natasha Romanoff welcomed you and this time, you didn’t bother slowing down as your head hit the desk. It hurt, but that was only a presage of the real pain.

“Nooooooo,” you whined loudly, faking and not quite faking a sob, because shit.

“Oh yes,” Natasha hummed nonchalantly.

You straightened a bit in your chair, narrowing your eyes at her as you noticed the corners of her lips twitching while she pretended to be busy checking out her possibly-mission-broken nails.

“It’s not funny.”

She snorted and glanced at your no doubt desperate face.

“It really is. But also kinda sad,” the spy noted, something resembling concern flickering over her face before she scrunched her nose, irises twinkling. “And disgustingly cute. It has Rogers written all over it.”

You glared at her some more, not even bothering to roll your eyes.

“Tell that to my landlord,” you muttered under your breath, leaning your elbow on the tabletop and dropping your chin to you palm. A second later, a brilliant idea hit you and you tried to manipulate your legs from under you.

The thing was, even if you had a pretty good idea of what was coming if you didn’t stop it and knew that it would be a bitch to deal with, Natasha was right.

In a way, it was utterly cute, disarmingly charming and entirely heart-warming. Your stomach fluttered, the fabled butterflies flipping their wings, your face grew hot and your heart… well, it felt as if it was growing in size.

It was also sad, heart-breaking even; Steve, especially after a mission, was a man running on instincts. It was one of the reasons why he had developed a habit of calling you, why he wanted to hear you ramble about your either boring or exciting but always wonderfully normal day. A day which involved no shooting and no blood besides papercuts and a quarrel with your stubborn boss who shoot you glares at best.

On a mission, these carnal automatisms often meant survival. But back home, Steve didn’t want to be a sum of instincts of survival, fight and fear; he wanted to feel again. And with you, he did. He wasn’t just a Captain America, a soldier to be put on battlefield whenever the general found fit. He was a human being. A wonderful one at that, with beautiful soul.

So yes. It was also rather upsetting.

And in a way, it was a little funny too. You knew it was totally your fault and that Steve was being kinda ridiculous, because he knew you and your inclination to wild gesticulations ending up catastrophically. On top of that, he was aware of this particular problem being almost a daily occurrence; hell, he tried to talk you into having Stark look at your laptop and failed.

And now... well. Here you were.

“You know, maybe if you get up and welcome him with door opened…” Natasha teased you with your own genius ides and you grinded your teeth, frantically trying to move your foot, which was pretty much on fire and yet dead.

“I would, but I… eh, pins and needles, was sitting on my feet,” you explained, embarrassed, testing whether your feet could carry you or not, naturally finding that without support, you’d be down before you could take as much as a step.

This time, Natasha didn’t snort in amusement.

Instead, she graced you with an outburst on honest full belly laughter, her red hair unfairly shiny for a woman who just spend week on a mission in damn Moldova and probably kicked more asses that you could imagine.

“You know what, Romanoff…” you grunted, forcing yourself to wobble towards the door. Very slowly. And cautiously. Knowing your luck, you might actually get hurt.

“I’m not even sorry,” she choked out and then continued to howl in laughter. “You so deserve each other. I finally know what the ‘idiots in love’ mean. Thanks for that!”

“You’re very welcome,” you huffed, voice dripping with irony.

Finally able to put full weight on both of your feet, you headed towards the exit – and entrance – of your apartment.

Halfway, you decided it was a lost cause. You would be willing to bet that the moment you’d touch the doorknob, you’d get hit to your face. It wasn’t worth it.

Yes, maybe if you did get hurt, it would make Steve think twice before coming all guns-and-shield blazing into your apartment; then again, it would probably cost you a broken nose.

Not to mention Steve’s tendency to get swallowed by the enormity of his guilt.

So not worth it. Best if you stayed put.

That was what you kept telling yourself when you stood there for about two minutes, in which you’d be able to open the door about forty times. Your annoyance – mostly with yourself and the cackling redhead – and the anticipation was becoming unbearable. As seconds ticked by, you were trying to convince yourself into taking the last few steps and opening the door and save yourself some trouble---

You yelped when the loud bang rattled your apartment the door sent flying of their hinges along with a spray of powered plaster despite knowing it was coming.

A glint of metal appeared next, the striking red, white and blue no longer there as it was covered in more bland colours for stealth missions.

And then a large figure cladded in blue shirt and grey jeans entered, his chest heaving, face flushed with red. Piercing blue eyes wiped of all previous traces of tiredness scanned the room, instantly falling on you as you awkwardly stood there, dumbfounded, startled and utterly speechless.

Also, much to Steve’s puzzlement, you were perfectly fine otherwise – even with both legs functioning, no remnants of pins and needles present.

Steve eased his posture instantly, eyes narrowing and then widening as he looked you up and down, lips parting in genuine surprise – and relief.

He said your name, clear and almost reverent, dropping the shield on the floor with a clang.

The ‘hi babe’ got stuck in your throat as you could see the tension leaving his shoulders, his eyes turning glassy and absent despite relief rolling off him in damn tsunami waves.

It hit you like a train – that you were delighted to see him, actually see him, even under these circumstances; and you truly didn’t want him to withdraw to some freaky brain-space after he had probably got one of the most ridiculous scares of his life due to the fact that his brain was not fully back in the normal world.

In the normal world where you abruptly disconnected a call without warning, because you talked too animatedly and not because some terrorist high on the FBI’s, CIA’s, NSA’s and SHIELD’s most wanted list found out you were Steve’s girlfriend and decided to take you out.

So to prevent another psychical horror trip of his, you went for distracting him – with a very relevant issue.

“You broke my door.”

Steve blinked, gaze refocusing on you fully, simply staring for a long moment.

“You went offline,” he objected quietly, a hint of accusation in his voice. God, you missed his voice.

“You broke my door, Steve.”

As if hearing his name was a spell, his frozen figure came to life and he took a cautious step closer, repeating his previous statement, this time with a hint of guilt.

“You went offline.”

“And you broke my door. That’s the second time this month, Steve! My landlords gonna k--- be real pissed at me,” you corrected yourself in the last second, not wanting say kill.

Steve ignored the slip and apparently got the message, his face twisting in genuine apology. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it!”

With efficiency of a supersoldier, he spun on his heels and rushed to pick up the door as if it was lighter than a paperweight and swiftly put it in place.

Only for the door to slowly tilt his way again. He caught it with a loud curse and moved it aside, leaning it partly against the wall. The action sent more plaster down onto the floor, like the only truly white snow in New York City. Peripherally, you noticed Steve grimacing, his face an expression an epitome of yikes.

You let your eyes slipped shut, shaking your head with a sigh, but couldn’t but chuckle. When you looked at Steve again, he resembled a 240 pounds giant Labrador puppy, truly regretful, approaching you reluctantly as if he was afraid you would slap his big paws for being clumsy.

What he would deserve was for you to clip round his ear for impulsiveness, but could you blame him? God knew what he had seen in Moldova in the past week, what horrors he had lived through and what a nightmare his mind had created when you ‘went offline’.

Him barging in like this due to your own dumbassery was kinda sad; a prove of his demanding job full of terror.

It was cute and heart-warming, because he just cared for you that much.

It was a little ridiculous, because as Steve finally crossed the distance between you two, the head of your elderly neighbour peeked from behind the empty doorway, puzzled and rather concerned.

You snorted unattractively, the scene in front of you seeming epically hilarious all of sudden.

“I’m good, Mr. T!” you called over Steve’s shoulder after the poor man who gossiped like an old woman and was just as hospitable. “Just my boyfriend fussing because of a technology fail!”

A grin spread on his wrinkled face; a testimony to years of laughter and amiability. “Oh. Hi, Mr. America!”

“Afternoon, Mr. T! I am verry sorry for disturbing you.”

The older-looking man waved off Steve’s politeness.

“It’s fine. You keep taking care of your lady, Mr. America, and keep her safe!”

“Yes, sir,” Steve humoured him with a salute, earning a wink.

As your neighbour walked away with a fresh topic for his Sunday tea party, Steve turned his attention to you again, eyes searching, wide, apologetic – but also soft, taking in the view of you, revelling in it.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he whispered lowly, the lopsided smile you loved so much gracing his face, once again pulling at that damn split lip. You grimaced a bit, the sight of him almost brining tears into your eyes; the gentleness and the remnants of fight punching you straight in the gut.

His eyes fluttered close when you lifted your hand and traced the line of the bruise on his face with the lightest pressure you were capable of. This time, tears definitely prickled in your eyes, but you blinked them away, cupping Steve’s cheek and pulling him close.

“Oh come here, babe,” you breathed out, fingers carding through his hair as he leaned his head on your shoulder, lips brushing the crook of your neck, strong arms embracing around your form.

He was warm and big and held you a bit tighter than necessary and dammit, you loved your sweet of heart and occasionally dumb of ass boyfriend. Boyfriend, who was crazy in love with you. Sometimes with emphasis on the crazy.

“I missed you, sweetheart,” he muttered, nose nuzzling the sensitive skin of your neck, breathing in deeply. You pretended it didn’t do things to you as he did everything to get lost in you and leave all the bad behind. You failed.

“You’re totally paying for fixing my door.”

Well, maybe not failed entirely.

“Of course,” Steve assured you dutifully, no hint of humour in his voice.

It broke you on a completely new level; he was serious. Dammit you loved this man!

“I missed you too,” you finally admitted and this time, he did chuckle, squeezing you even tighter, hand running up and down your back. Without any warning, he tightened his grip and lifted you from the floor so you had to cling to him entirely, causing you to gasp.

You never got the chance to gather your wits and comment on that, because an annoyed voice of a certain redhead sounded from your laptop.

“…alright, you crazy kids, you had your cuddles. Now, Rogers, should I tell Fury you’re coming back for the debriefing or should we just finally change with the times and do it over Zoom?”

Clutching Steve’s waist and shoulder, face contentedly in his chest, you voted for the latter.

Steve Rogers masterlist

Lovely divider by whimsicalrogers.

A fic from collection ‘This was supposed to be a drabble.’ Also, I couldn’t for the love of god figure out a better title.

I hope you enjoyed at least a bit :-*

Thank you for reading!

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #steve rogers fluff #captain america fluff #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america fanfiction #marvel #mcu #one door closes #anika ann

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echoalyssa · 3 years

Note

Hey can you write asher adams x reader imagine where she is his best friend but also has feelings for him and she saw Olivia cheating on asher with spencer but she doesn't know how to tell asher and she avoids him and when Asher confronts her she tells everything..

Meant To Be | Asher Adams

Authors Note: Thanks for requesting! I’m sorry it took so long!

Asher Adams is your best friend, but only your best friend despite the feelings you harbor for him. And the issue is that he has a girlfriend, one that he loves. So that’s the issue, well one of the issues.

All you had been doing was walking to class, you’d decided to take the long way to your physics class, through and down some hallways that were basically abandoned.

For a school as large as Beverly, it was quite a walk, you weren’t even sure what these classrooms lining the hallways were for.

You turn a corner, your head bobbing to a machine gun Kelly song from his new album that was playing through your AirPods.

Instead of an empty hallway there’s two figures present in this one.

The male is pressing the female against a door to a classroom. Their lips are locked and it’s passionate, you can see the tongue, the body movements, the way she pulls him closer by his shirt.

You try to keep walking, to keep your head down but something in you urges you to look up, and so you do and freeze. It’s Spencer and Olivia, so deep in each other that they don’t immediately notice you standing there. You can't avert your eyes even if you wanted to.

Olivias eyes pop open when Spencers lips move to her neck and she sees you, gaping from down the hallway, only a few paces away.

Her eyes go wide and her hands go to push him away. “Spencer stop!”

He pulls back from her immediately and retracts his hand from under her shirt. His eyes search her face hurriedly and then he follows her gaze to where you're standing. He releases her from his grasp and Olivia shoots forward, going to grab your hand.

“It’s not what it looks like Y/N, I promise!”

You scoff, “It looks like you're cheating on my best friend!”

“No no it ain’t like that. Liv didn't mean no harm, this was all me a’ight?” Spencer says and rubs the back of his neck.

“No no, it wasn’t Spencers fault, it’s mine. I... I cheated on Asher.”

“Spencer, you’re on a break with Layla! That doesn’t mean you can do this! And Olivia, you looked like a very active participant!”

Olivias bottom lip quivers, “I n-never meant to hurt Asher, I love him! Please don’t tell him.”

You didn't think cheating on him would hurt him!?”

“I-I, my heart said-”

“Asher doesn’t deserve this!” You interrupt. “You claim to not want to hurt him but you’re his girlfriend. And you are his best friend Spencer! And on top of it all you want me to hide it from him!? If your heart said Spencer, you should have ended things with Asher first!”

Olivia crumples to the floor, and Spencer rushes to her side to hold her.

“I’m not hiding this from him, so either you tell him, or I do! And don’t you even think about offering to do it Spencer, this is Olivia’s story to tell!”

“I c-can’t,” she cries from between her hands that are covering her face. You glare at her and Spencer and then spin around on your heel.

~~~

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately Asher is in your next class. He’s already there and when you spot him you freeze. Why would anyone cheat on him?

He waves at you and when you finally unfreeze and have to walk past him he sticks his fist out for a bump.

You bump it, attempting to plaster a fake smile on so that he doesn’t see right through you as he normally does. Though you didn't want to keep him in the dark for longer than you had to. Now was definitely not the time to tell him.

His hand shoots out and because he's sitting down he can’t reach your shoulder so his hand lands on your hip. You stop immediately, sparks flying from where his hand connects with your person.

“H-hi Ash.” You manage to choke out eventually.

“Hey Y/N, you okay? You look kinda pale.”

You fiddle with your hoodie string, “Um...yup just worried about a pop quiz.”

His head drops back, exposing his neck and you try your hardest to avoid staring at his Adams apple and the veins in his throat.

“We never have pop quizzes in this class!” He says with a chuckle, “But you know we’d cheat if there was one.”

You smile knowing that his statement is true and finally you tear your gaze from him so that you can take your seat.

The teacher is droning on when a tiny piece of paper lands on your desk. You look up, seeing Asher turn back around in his seat and you unfold the note.

In Asher’s signature handwriting, the note reads, My house after school?

It should be normal, but your stomach flutters with the anticipation of being in his house with him alone.

He turns to look at you for your answer and you nod at him with a smile. Asher grins.

~~~

The final school bell rings and you immediately rush to the parking lot, specifically Asher’s car. He normally gave you a ride to school and then you’d sit and watch his football practice and do your homework before he’d drop you off at your house.

Football practice had been canceled today so the coaches could have a coach only meeting.

He isn't there yet so you lean against the passenger side door until he appears.

“Y/N!” he calls you in a sing song voice and unlocks the door for you.

You hop in, snagging the aux cord and he lets you, just like always.

“Olivia hasn’t been responding.” He murmurs, because he’s comfortable letting you in on the details of his relationship, just before the music starts and you're hit with a flash of guilt.

You would tell him, you would, just not while he was driving.

His house isn't too terribly far from school, only a ten minute drive or so and before you know it you're hopping out of his car and racing him to the front door.

Asher wins of course, but it was always fun to try.

“My room?” he asks.

You nod, trying to hide the excited smile that is trying to take residence upon your face.

He plops onto his bed and motions for you to come out on it too.

Has Olivia ever been with him in this bed? Of course she had.

“Ash, I need to tell you something.”

“Yessssss..?”

When you don’t respond he sits forward and takes you with his pencil so you screech. And then again for good measure.

“It’s... about you and Olivia.”

“And..?” he prompts.

And because you can’t hide anything from him the words rush out. “I was taking the long way to class, you know how I do that sometimes? I was just walking along, lost in thought and minding my own business. And then I saw these two people making out. And I mean heavy, like hands under clothing, tongues down each others throats, making out. I didn't realize I knew them until I got closer and then I couldn’t believe who or what I was seeing but... it was Spencer and Olivia.”

You bite your lip to stop yourself from rambling on, one of your nervous habits, your eyes well with tears because of the pain you must be causing him. “I’m so sorry Asher. I told her to tell you but she refused and I couldn’t tell you any sooner than now and...”

He sits forward, unusually silent, and then he opens his phone and taps out a message. He turns it around to show you. It’s a message to Olivia.

‘I know. It’s over.’ it reads.

And then very calmly he looks at you, leans closer, and then pulls you in.

His lips land on yours, carefully at first, testing the waters to see if you were okay with it or not.

And once you get over the initial shock that you're kissing Asher Adams, your best friend, you respond eagerly.

You part your lips more, allowing his tongue to slide into your mouth. You moan softly into the kiss as he sets both your mind and body alight.

His hands move to your waist, pulling you closer to him. His hand is in your hair and he’s exploring your mouth eagerly.

All too soon, you have to remember to breathe which requires separating from him.

There’s a content smile written on both your faces.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for as long as I could remember.”

You grin at him, knowing he doesn’t need an explanation from you so instead you get out of his bed and pull one of his hoodies out of his closet. You change in front of him, sliding out of your crop top and sliding his hoodie on. You ditch your sweatpants, opting to just have on the nike pros you’d been wearing underneath them.

You climb into bed again but this time under his covers. He joins you with a grin that shows you all of his emotion and pulls you into his chest,

“You are so unbelievably hot.”

You curl into him, listening to his heartbeat. There would be time to talk about this later, to work out the fine details. But for now, the two of you both just knew that this was right and you were content with it. You had always loved one another, you just hadn’t realized that it was like this, in this way.

#asher adams #cody christian #asher adams x reader #all american #asher adams imagine

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aellynera · 3 years

Text

Loose Change (Llewyn Davis x Reader)

LOOSE CHANGE

For this week’s Writer Wednesday hosted by the lovely @autumnleaves1991-blog! Llewyn was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this, and I really don’t know where the rest of it came from, but I just had to write it. Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, and reblogging! 💜💜

This week’s inspiration:

Word Count: 2300 on the dot.

Summary: How bad can it be when your phone rings in the middle of the night? (An alternate take on what could have happened on the way back from Chicago.)

Warnings: Angsty. Hopeful. Hopeful angst? Angstful hope? Maybe a swear or two. Sketchy phone booths. Wrong numbers. Yearning. Secrets, poor decisions, better choices.

The bed was warm but you could hear the cold rain pounding on the window behind your head. Ignoring it and staying in your cozy, comfortable cocoon was definitely your best option, and you rolled over and pulled the blankets tighter over your head. This was the right place to be and you felt yourself start drifting back to sleep.

Until your phone started ringing.

Your phone, which was nowhere near your bed, or even in your bedroom. It wasn’t even within fifty feet of you; it was securely fastened to the wall in your kitchen, by the sink, next to the pantry door. And your kitchen was clear on the other side of the apartment.

A quick check of the clock told you that it was also the ungodly hour of 3:28 am, the red digits blaring at you angrily in the near-dark. Who in the world was calling you at this hour? For a long few minutes you thought about ignoring it. It was probably a wrong number. That happened all the time. Or maybe it was some kids having a party and pranking. In the middle of the night. That was probably it.

But a little tickle at the back of your brain, small and sinewy, kept curling around your thoughts and rationalization and it wouldn’t let go. Maybe it’s important. Maybe it really was. Maybe something happened to one of your parents or your sister or-

The phone didn’t stop ringing. So it must be important.

With an exasperated groan, you launched yourself out of bed, one quilt still wrapped around you to ward off the damp chill. Your bare feet slapped along the tile floor and your balance wavered slightly, your muscles still used to being asleep, until you finally got to the kitchen and yanked the receiver off the ringing phone.

“Hello?” your sleep-ridden voice rasped out cautiously.

“Hey,” the voice on the other end came back. “You got the stuff?”

“The...what?”

“You know, the…”

“The st...No! Do you know what time it is? This is a wrong number! What the hell!” You slammed the phone back down on its cradle.

Figures. It was a wrong number. You wanted to go back to bed, you really did. But now you found yourself wide awake because someone wanted stuff that you wouldn’t have day or night.

So you wandered over to the couch and tried to get comfortable on the lumpy cushions, and watched the rain coming down outside your window bounce dramatically off the fire escape.

Until your phone rang again.

A curse flew from your lips as you hurled the quilt off and stomped back to the phone. You grabbed it, put it to your ear, and shouted, “What?”

“I...are you okay?” a voice came back. A familiar voice, this time.

“Llewyn? Is that you?” you closed your eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me,” he replied. “Uh, sorry I’m calling you so late.”

You sighed. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess. I just...some stuff happened, and I needed to hear a familiar voice.”

Your heart immediately softened in your chest, despite your very strong desire to still be angry. Llewyn certainly didn’t sound okay, but that was his norm. You wanted to reach through the phone and hold him, care for him.

You always had a soft spot for him, ever since Jean introduced you so long ago, that day in the park when all the musician friends gathered to play at the fountain. He spent a fair amount of time sleeping on this lumpy old couch. You cooked him a hot meal when you could (and when he would let you), gave him a place to stay even if you weren’t home (on the rare occasion that he would even agree to it, which was slowly becoming more frequent.) You went to as many of his shows as you could, and you really just liked to hang out with him when he was around. He’d slowly become one of your best friends.

And yeah, he was kind of an asshole a lot of the time, but he was sweet and you probably liked him a little more than you were willing to admit.

“Llewyn, where are you? Do you need me to come get you or something?” you asked with a yawn. You really hoped that’s why he was calling you at...3:37 am..

His laugh was short. “Well, if you feel like driving to Ohio, sure.”

“Ohio?” you cried. “What are you doing in…”

The laugh from moments before fell into a sigh and you could hear a soft thunk follow. “I’m in Akron. In a payphone booth outside of a bar, banging my head on the glass. I’ll hitchhike home in the morning, it’s fine.”

“You’re in Akron,” you repeated slowly. “Why are you in Akron?”

“Because I was in Chicago-”

“Which is not Akron, the last time I checked. Or even the same state,” you pointed out. You picked the quilt up from the floor and wrapped yourself back in it, settling on the couch again. The receiver cord had just enough reach that you were able to sit with your back against one arm and stare back out the window and the slippery wet metal of the fire escape glinting in the moonlight.

Vaguely you remembered this was the quilt Llewyn had used the last time he stayed with you.

“Well it’s on the way back,” Llewyn snapped. “And I wouldn’t be in Akron if the car I was in hadn’t broken down and…”

“Does this have something to do with Diane?” you asked softly. That sinewy tentacle of intuition was back, curling around your brain again.

The rough exhale of air on the other end of the line was the only answer you needed.

“Llewyn.” You said again, still soft, but more stern. Something was going on, and you could tell he wasn’t going to tell you without some prodding.

After what felt like hours, he finally muttered, “Maybe.”

“Llewyn, what are you doing? You can’t possibly want to talk to her, after everything that happened. Did the car really break down in Akron, or did you request a stop? Because it seems kind of suspect that you would just, you know, end up there of all places on your way back from Chicago, and what were you even doing in Chicago? I just saw you a couple days ago and you didn’t say anything about--”

It wasn’t until Llewyn broke through your rant that you noticed you’d hadn’t stopped for a single breath.

“The car really did break down,” he insisted. “And I don’t actually want to see her. Not really. But...I feel like I kind of have to, and it’s...it’s just a coincidence that I got stranded here?”

You didn’t know what to say. So you didn’t, and after a beat, he continued.

“I have a kid.”

It suddenly felt like all the air was sucked out of the room. “I’m sorry, what?” You knew he couldn’t see you, but maybe he could feel the way your eyebrows shot up your forehead.

“Diane,” he sighed again, “she didn’t...I found out she had the kid. So I have a kid. Somewhere in Akron. Where I’m currently stranded, looking like a drunk bum loitering outside a sketchy bar.”

You blinked infinitely as you stared out the window. What do you say to that? How do you say anything to that? So you just said the first thing that came to mind.

“Are you drunk?”

“Really?” Now you were pretty sure you could hear his brows raise. “Do I sound like I’ve been drinking?”

“No, I’m sorry, I just...holy shit, Llewyn,” you breathed. “And she never told you?”

His chuckle sounded so morose. “No. Why would she? That was a pretty shit time, for everyone.”

“I’m listening,” you whispered.

You knew the story of what happened between them. Llewyn had told you himself, one night over coffee and an entire chocolate cake that one of your elderly neighbors had made for you for helping her fix her leaky faucet. Of course, Jean had (in her own mind) helpfully filled in all the blanks she swore Llewyn left out, but you preferred to go with his version. She only thought you knew the basics. But that night, fueled by caffeine and frosting, Llewyn admitted you were the only one apart from the actual players that knew everything.

But this part? This was something new.

“She never told me,” he explained. “I thought she went through with it and it turned out she didn’t and she’s not even the one who told me, it was...you know, never mind. That part isn't important.”

“So when did you find out? How long have you been in Akron?”

He sighed. “Just before I left for Chicago. And since this afternoon. I thought about looking them up, but…”

And he told you how he tried an old number he had for Diane’s parents, but it was disconnected. And he’d asked around at the diner he found (over something called chili which wasn’t like any chili he’d ever had and just further proved how weird Ohio was) but got no information. And how he didn’t really want to see her, and maybe he didn’t even really want to meet up with anyone, but if he could, he at least wanted to see what his own kid looked like, just to know.

The longing in his voice, the what if, the hurt. It was all laid bare from hundreds of miles away, yet you could feel it hovering next to you on that couch. Wrapped around you in that threadbare quilt.

It didn’t feel like the time to offer any advice, and platitudes, any words at all. Not now. So you simply curled up in that quilt - his quilt - and listened. It was rare for him to open up like this and you didn’t want to interrupt, didn’t want to staunch the flow of emotional honesty that he quite frankly needed.

Until the tinny, pleasantly fabricated, slightly mechanical voice broke in, if you’d like to continue this call, please add funds, otherwise this call will disconnect in three minutes.

“Shit, that was my last quarter,” Llewyn muttered. “I’ll get back to you when I get back in town, yeah?”

Oh no, you brain screamed. Well, yes, but no, no he was not just going to let the issue drop like this, quarters be damned.

“Llewyn, I need you to listen to me. Get home as soon as you can, and we can talk about this more. And get here in one piece, please be safe.”

“Okay,” he replied with a heavy exhale.

“And...and Llewyn, when you get back home, please...please come home.”

There was silence from his end, silence that lasted so long you thought the call had disconnected without you noticing. Your breath stuck in your lungs, for how long you couldn’t tell, but then suddenly his voice came through the receiver again, flustered and short.

“I...okay, yeah, I will, I gotta go, but...damn it, what is there to lose now, I lo--”

And the call cut off.

You stared at the receiver in your hand for so long the fast busy-beep of the receiver being off the hook is the only thing that snapped you out of it.

You didn’t sleep for the rest of what was left of the night.

For the next day, and the day after, you ran the entire phone call through your head more times that you cared to admit. Every word he’d said, every word you’d said, every pause and admission and what he might have been trying to say at the end. Your mind very (un)helpfully offered all kinds of ideas about what wasn’t said, what maybe couldn’t yet be said, and you just let it tumble around chaotically.

As if you could control it anyway.

You didn’t get much sleep.

Later that night, and on the second day after, after a long day at work and a longer day of thinking, you found yourself curled up on the couch again, with a glass of wine and a record spinning quietly on the turntable. Wrapped in that same quilt. Your quilt- his quilt.

You stared out the window, this time not at the rain, but the setting sun and the soft, rich colors it was painting across the sky.

You hoped he had really listened. You hope he knew what you actually meant. You hoped he wouldn’t get sidetracked as he often tended to do and that he would really show up. You didn’t know how you were going to do it, but you would help him like you always had. Together you would figure out what to do, what he needed to do, what he wanted to do, how to do it. Together.

This wasn’t something he should have to figure out on his own. He probably didn’t want to admit it, but you hope he knew he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, and didn’t have to. You hoped Llewyn would let you.

That tickle, that tentacle in the back of your brain, took firm hold. You knew he would come back, but you prayed he would come home.

That he had listened. That he knew. That he--

Your head snapped up at the sound of a knock on the door. You carefully set the wine glass down and slowly walked yourself, quilt and all, over to answer it.

And once you opened it, saw the man standing before you, exhausted and disheveled but...grateful, maybe even hopeful, you wrapped it around both of you and pulled Llewyn in.

~end~

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rosemaidenvixen · 3 years

Text

A Secret’s Worth

Chapter 19: Toby

Ao3

Toby's chest hurt so bad it actually felt like someone was literally stabbing him in the heart. Still he didn't slow down, if anything he pedaled even harder.

The girls were riding neck and neck with him, in just as much of a hurry to reach their destination.

He shouldn’t have flipped out at Jim yesterday. He shouldn’t have thrown back what he knew about the scars on his ankle just because he was pissed. Now this whole thing was ten times worse and it was all his fault.

It had been so hard, watching Jim go home every day for the past month and forcing himself not to say anything, even when Jim started to look more and more anxious every day. But you know who had it even worse? The guy doing the actual suffering.

Toby had heard the phrase victim blaming before, but he never really got it until now. He’d just been so insanely furious hearing Jim yell at them for lying when he hadn’t said an honest thing to them in months, and when they’d been doing everything they could to help him he hadn’t responded right--

The guy’s mom locked him in the basement and slashed up his ankle; what the hell was the ‘right’ way to act after that?

Now Jim was hurt really bad and he’d had to go to the hospital and he wasn’t in school today and he wasn’t answering his phone--

Toby needed to see if Jim was ok.

A throbbing pain that had nothing to do with the strain of pedaling uphill stabbed through his chest.

Or if not ok, alive and kicking.

He skidded to a stop on Jim’s lawn, stumbling off of his bike and running up to pound on the front door “Jim you’ve got about ten seconds to open this door before I’m breaking it down!”

Ok maybe that was the wrong thing to start off with considering he was there to apologize, but Toby would just add it to the list of things to grovel for forgiveness for after he saw that Jim was alright.

And just when he was about to make good on his threat, a hand grabbed his shoulder and started tugging him away. Toby jerked around to see who it was.

“Don’t try to stop me Darci,”

Her expression was soft in a way that made him feel even worse “I’m not, but Toby, I don't think anyone's home. All the lights are off and the car’s gone,”

He snapped back around, heart plummeting when he saw that she was right.

Jim and Dr. Lake weren’t here.

“And your Nana’s watching,”

Toby whirled, spotting Phil, one of Nana’s chess buddies, sitting in his car in their driveway with Nana stepping into the passenger seat. He stood there frozen for a few seconds before darting around Darci and sprinting across the cul de sac.

“Nana, wait! Stop stop stop!”

Phil, clearly startled, stopped the car in the middle of the street, Nana rolling down her window and poking her head out “Toby? What on earth is the matter?”

Besides the fact he didn’t want Nana witnessing him busting into Jim’s house, just because Jim had gone radio silent on them didn’t mean that Nana had stopped talking to Dr. Lake. So there was a chance she knew something they didn’t.

He slowed to a stop, panting “Have-- have you- have you heard what’s going on with Jim?”

Immediately her face shifted from confused to contrite “Oh yes Barbara told me, so sad that he got hurt, but he’s doing much better now,”

Toby heard the girls scurry up behind him.

“Do you know when they’ll be home from the hospital?”

“Didn’t Jim tell you?” Nana glanced at Phil, who took the hint and put the car into park before Nana turned and faced them again “They came home about two hours ago, but left for their spring break trip right away, Barbara and Jim won’t be back for about ten days,”

Toby actually felt his jaw drop open.

“B...But…” Claire stammered “Are they seriously going backpacking in Yosemite with Jim being all busted up?”

“I was surprised to, but Barbara said that Jim really didn’t want to miss their vacation, so they’re going to San Francisco and staying in a hotel instead,” the corners of Nana’s mouth tugged downwards into a frown, eyebrows drawing together “Did Jim not tell you any of this?”

Ok she had clearly picked up on the fact that things weren’t ‘Ok’ between Jim and them, and normally Toby would be trying to reassure Nana that everything really was cool, but right now he was too busy concentrating on not puking.

They were gone. For ten days. Ten whole days Jim and Dr. Lake would be gone.

Plenty of time for another 'animal attack'.

After an uncomfortably long silence Nana leaned back in her seat and redid her belt “I need to get to my cardiologist appointment now, but we can talk more when I get back,”

With that she nodded at Phil, who looked incredibly uncomfortable, but restarted the car and pulled away, leaving the four of them alone in the cul de sac, with nothing to do but slowly pick up their bikes and trudge into Toby’s garage.

They’d screwed up. He’d screwed up. He’d screwed up so freaking bad. Yeah Jim was being a gigantic freaking hypocrite about the lying, but his mom locks him in the basement every other Tuesday. Of course the guy wasn’t acting rationally.

He could still see the terrified look on Jim’s face while they yelled at him yesterday crystal clear.

And just because Jim was being a hypocrite didn’t mean that it wasn’t a dick move to lie to him about calling CPS.

And what they did yesterday….

Toby swallowed back another wave of nausea. Just thinking about what he’d done was enough to make him sick, he wanted to go back in time and smack some sense into himself.

He’d let his anger win out over everything else and started firing back at Jim, and then the girls had followed his lead. Pushing Jim so far over the edge that he went and started a fight with Psycho Steve of all people, who put him in the freaking hospital. Now Dr. Lake had taken him out of town and he wasn’t answering his phone--

His train of thought flew off the rails and crashed to a halt.

Jim and Dr. Lake were gone, and wouldn’t be back for over a week. Which meant that their house was going to be completely empty for that whole time.

Before the idea had even finished forming Toby knew what he had to do.

Immediately after propping his bike up against the wall Toby strode over to the toolbench and grabbed the items he was looking for. A doorstop, an unraveled wire coat hanger, and the biggest pair of bolt cutters Nana had been able to find at Home Depot.

Darci was the first to notice him “What are you doing with all that?”

“Snooping,”

Now Mary and Claire were looking at him to “What do you mean?”

“Jim and Dr. Lake are gone for spring break, and I think we all know that Jim is going to ignore any texts or messages we send. So I’m going straight to the source, I’m going into their house to get some real answers,”

The girls all shared an uncertain look “Toby…” Claire said slowly “You know that if you break in they won’t be able to use anything you find as evidence, right?”

He wilted a little, but tightened his grip on the bolt cutters at the same time “I know, but this might be the only chance to find out what’s really happening to Jim. And if I can figure that out, maybe I can figure out how to get Jim to let us help him,”

Toby turned and then hesitated, dragging the toe of his shoe on the concrete “I won’t ask you guys to come with me, but I need to do this,”

Knowing that if he waited any longer he was going to chicken out, Toby raised his foot and strode out of the garage, making a beeline for the Lake house. After a few seconds he heard footsteps behind him as the girls started to follow.

And even though he knew he’d do this alone if he had to, it felt really really good that he didn’t have to.

Once he got to Jim’s garage, Toby pulled a trash can up to the door and stood on it. Boosting him up high enough to wedge the door stop between the garage door and the frame, reaching in with the coathanger until he snagged the cord and pulled it down within arm’s reach. Cord in hand, Toby yanked until he felt it give, allowing him to slide up the garage door with ease.

Stepping down and picking up the trash can, Toby turned to go put it back when he saw Claire, Darci, and Mary staring at him with big eyes.

“Toby…” Mary said slowly “How did you know how to do that?”

“Oh, uh…” he felt his face heat up “Nana showed me how when Meow Meow PI got locked in our garage, then she made me promise not to tell anyone….so please don’t tell anyone,”

“We won’t but you are going to have to teach us that one,”

Once the trash can was back in place they headed in, Toby pulling the garage door shut behind them “Where should we start?” Darci whispered, even though it was only the four of them in the deserted house.

Toby glanced around, tool bench, picnic coolers, spare fridge, chest freezer-- He froze, eyes locked on the chest freezer pushed back against the far wall. The one that was always kept padlocked for reasons he’d never questioned until now. The only reason he could think of to keep a freezer locked would be--

He shoved the idea away before a picture could form in his head.

But now he needed to see for himself to make sure that the thought he was desperately trying not to think about wasn’t true.

“Here,” he strode over, and with only slightly shaking hands, cut the metal U of the latch off with two snaps of the bolt cutters, the unopened lock clattering to the floor. It was actually easier than he thought it would be, of course the bolt cutters were ginormous compared to the latch.

The girls gathered in close as he popped the now empty latch and slowly lifted the lid.

First off there weren’t any dead bodies staring back at them, so that was good. It looked like the freezer was just stuffed with regular plastic grocery packages. But why put a lock on ordinary food? Maybe they really were worried about racoons, those were a menace in this neighborhood.

Despite that perfectly rational, reasonable explanation, Toby couldn’t shake the feeling that something looked off about the food in front of him, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

It only took a few more seconds of staring for him to figure it out. He didn’t recognize any of the labels on these packages. And he and Jim had done a lot of grocery shopping together. Jim going on and on about all the subtle differences in flavor between different items and different brands.

That’s how Toby knew with absolute certainty that this stuff wasn’t anything you could buy at any grocery store in Arcadia Oaks. Because in all of their trips shopping together, they’d never bought any of the items in this freezer.

Reaching past him, Claire gingerly picked up something shrink wrapped in blue and yellow plastic “Beef sweetbreads?”

Toby eyed the package suspiciously “Bread doesn’t come from beef,”

“Sweetbreads aren’t bread, they’re organ meat,”

“Ew,”

“Hey they’re actually pretty good when you cook them right,”

Even more curious now, they all started reaching in and rifling through the frozen packages in front of them.

“It looks like this is just a bunch of meat,” Darci said while holding up a bag of beef bones by the corner between her thumb and forefinger.

Mary wrinkled her nose at a package of chicken livers “Yeah, but I’ve never seen Jim cook with any of this stuff,” she peered in Toby’s direction “Have you?”

His mouth went dry, nausea creeping back in “No, I haven’t,”

They kept digging, plastic packs of meat piling up on the floor around them, and the deeper they went the weirder things got. Eventually hitting what looked like whole small animals, cleaned and skinned and sealed in shrink wrap. Toby lifted one of them out, guts squirming in his belly “Guys, what are these?”

Claire leaned over and read off a tiny label on the corner of the package “It says whole rabbit,”

This kept getting freakier and freakier, Jim had never cooked rabbit meat before, let alone roasting them whole.

Darci and Mary cleared off the rest of the rabbits to uncover a massive package at the bottom, one that would have taken all four of them to lift out, bright red of raw muscle showing clearly against the white of the freezer. But unlike everything else in here, this one had clearly been opened and resealed multiple times, with chunks of meat taken off, proving that someone was taking stuff out of this freezer and using it on a regular basis

“This one says whole bison leg,” Darci said quietly.

A chill went through him, and not because he was standing in front of an open freezer.

“Oh my god, I just can’t--” Mary darted away, running to the wall farthest away from the freezer and slumping against it, gasping and shaking. Claire immediately ran over and put an arm around her shoulders, leaving Toby and Darci standing in front of the freezer.

“Toby,” Darci’s voice was a monotone, her eyes locked on the frozen leg in front of them “Are you absolutely sure that Jim never cooked with any of this stuff,”

“Positive,”

“Then...what do they do with all this?”

Toby’s stomach shrank in on itself “I don’t know,”

Were they trying to bait racoons or something? It was the only thing Toby could think of, but if they were, why? And he was pretty sure there was a lot cheaper stuff out there they could use for racoon bait. But if they weren’t using it as bait then what they hell were they doing with all this weird meat? And why the lock?

Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, Darci slowly started putting the packages they’d taken out back in the freezer “Ok, we’re not going to find anything else out here, we need to clean up and keep looking,”

Fighting past the painful tightness in his abdomen, Toby grabbed a rabbit and joined her. Claire eventually came over to help them, but Mary stayed far away until the lid of the freezer was shut.

“Um, Toby…” she said, walking back up to join them “How are we going to put the lock back on when you cut it off?”

“Easy,” he walked over to the toolbench and picked up a small bottle “Instant set Gorilla glue,”

And with two quick dabs of glue and Mary holding the pieces for him, the lock and the latch looked nearly as good as new. The latch did look a little funky from where the cutters had gone through, but Toby was pretty sure Jim and Dr. Lake wouldn’t notice it.

Now time to search the rest of the house.

Toby headed through the side door into the main house with the girls just behind him, pausing just inside the hall while he tried to figure out the best place to search first.

“Let’s look in Dr. Lake’s bedroom,”

All three of them slowly turned towards Mary.

“I mean…” her cheeks filled with red “If she’s hiding something chances are it would be in there,”

Claire nodded at that “You’re right, let’s go,”

The girls headed towards the stairs, but Toby hung back. Darci paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing back at him “Everything ok Toby?”

Even knowing what he knew, about the basement and the scars and all the other strange stuff. There was a part of him that still thought of Dr. Lake as….Dr. Lake. His friend’s fun, sometimes goofy mom, the one that took them to theme parks and gave the best presents on birthdays and holidays, who was never too busy to talk and always happy to see him. Going into her room and snooping through all her stuff felt...wrong.

All the girls were looking at him now, seeing what the hold up was.

Toby clenched his jaw and raised his head.

But no matter how bad he felt about it Toby couldn’t let his guilty conscience get in the way. Dr. Lake….Dr. Lake wasn’t who he thought she was, and Jim was in real trouble. This was the only way he could help him. That meant he had to suck it up and follow through.

He’d come this far already.

“Y-- yeah I’m fine, let’s go,” Toby forced his feet to move and followed them up the stairs into the back bedroom. His throat tightening when he saw Mary dive straight into going through her dresser, even as he set aside his tools and got down on his knees to join her.

They spent nearly two hours going through the room from top to bottom. Searching the closet, every drawer in the dresser, under the bed and in the nightstand, every single nook and cranny in the room, even under the mattress. But they didn’t find anything. Just clothes, jewelry, and books.

Toby glumly replaced the socks back in the drawer he pulled them out of. If there was anything hidden in the house it wasn’t in here. So all they’d managed to accomplish was violating Dr. Lake’s privacy. But if there wasn’t anything in her bedroom then where else would--

“Toby,” Claire spoke up, startling him “Do you know if this house has a crawlspace, or an attic?”

He paused with his hand halfway out of the sock drawer. The Lakes had both a crawlspace and an attic. He’d seen the crawlspace, a small cubby in the basement full of their Christmas decorations, but the attic--

Dr. Lake had only mentioned once that they did have an unfinished attic, even shown him where it was.

And then said that he should never ever go up there.

“Their crawlspace is full of Christmas decorations, but I’ve never seen inside the attic. Dr. Lake said it was off limits,”

That got the girls’ attention.

Mary got to her feet “Where is it?”

“Closet, in the ceiling,”

Immediately they all made a beeline towards the closet, Mary pulling open the doors and revealing the square cut out of the plaster in the ceiling.

Claire frowned “How is one of us supposed to get up there?”

“I’ll do it guys,” Darci stepped forward, shoulders square and mouth set in a firm line “I’m the tallest, just give me a boost,”

Positioning themselves directly under the hole, Mary and Claire each grabbed one of Darci’s legs and lifted, allowing Darci to push aside the cut out square of ceiling and poke her head into the darkness of the attic beyond.

“A little higher guys, I need to get a good grip to pull myself up,”

Claire and Mary obliged, raising Darci until she was waist deep in the attic, allowing her to kick off from the palms of their hands and vanish into the dark hole. After a few seconds Toby saw a small light, which had to be from Darci’s cellphone, blink on, illuminating the bare wooden beams of the unfinished space.

“You see anything Darc?” Mary called up at her.

The light bobbed around in the small space above them, ceiling creaking under her as Darci moved around “Nothing so far, there’s a lot of fiberglass insulation so I have to be careful not to…”

All of a sudden the creaks stopped, the light staying frozen in one spot.

“Darci,” Toby forced the strangled word out “What’s going on?”

Things were silent for a few more seconds before they heard her voice again “There’s a box here guys, and it doesn’t look like Christmas decorations,”

With some tricky maneuvering, Darci managed to push the box down the hole, where Toby and Claire caught it. Quickly moving it off to the side so the three of them could catch Darci as she jumped down. Once she managed to untangle herself from them they all turned their attention back to the box.

Toby pushed it out of the closet so there was enough room for all of them to huddle around it. The box was about the size of a microwave, dark metal and surprisingly heavy for its size. It looked like one of those heavy duty water/fire/apocalypse proof boxes, and fortunately it wasn’t locked, meaning they wouldn’t need the bolt cutters. Trembling, terrified of what he might find, Toby popped the latches and lifted the lid.

Part of him was worried that when they opened it they wouldn’t find anything but boring adult papers, bills and insurance stuff like that, but one look and he knew that wasn’t going to be the case.

Inside were two black bags, a large plastic one and a small felt one, and some kind of weird plastic rectangle. Mary reached in and pulled out the small bag first.

They all watched her tug the drawstrings open, not even daring to breathe as she turned the bag over and dumped the contents out.

A bunch of loose teeth and a bundle of black hair in a rubber band tumbled onto her hand.

Just when Toby thought this couldn’t get any more confusing “What the hell is all that?”

Claire poked at one of the teeth sitting in Mary’s palm “This looks like stuff from an animal,”

It certainly did. That hair could easily be fur, and those teeth would have been right at home on a bear’s mouth. Big and sharp and clearly from a meat eater.

A locked freezer full of strange meat, animal parts hidden away in the attic. Toby still couldn’t put the pieces together, but it wasn’t shaping up to be anything good.

They spent a good minute staring at them before Mary poured the teeth and hair back in the bag “We aren’t going to learning anything by staring at teeth, let’s keep going,”

Claire grabbed the large bag just as Mary was replacing the small one, setting it in front of her and untying the straps to peer down inside.

Toby crawled closer “What is it? What’s in there?”

“It looks like...bath bombs,”

“What? No way,” Darci scooted up to Claire’s side and glanced down at the open bag “Huh, it does look like bath bombs,”

It took Toby a few seconds to realize they weren’t talking about actual explosives “Bath bombs,” he said incredulously “You mean like those fizzy scented things you put in the tub, those kind of bath bombs?”

Claire got to her feet “Only one way to be sure, follow me guys,,”

They tailed after Claire down the hall into the bathroom, where she promptly started filling the tub. Once there was about a half a foot of water inside she reached into the bag, pulled out a grainy pink ball, and dropped it in the water.

As they gathered in close and watched, a cloud of pink bubbles fizzed up around the sphere, filling the tub with pink foam and the scent of--

“Huh,” Toby sniffed “Roses,”

Mary reached a hand into the water, swirling it around before emerging slightly pink “It looks like they are just bath bombs,”

Ok this was getting really weird. Bath Bombs and animal parts weren’t exactly criminal, but what were they doing locked up in a secret attic box?

For a long time Toby had thought that the curfew and the locking in the basement was because of what Nana told him. That Dr. Lake was so scared of losing Jim she’d started doing some messed up things in order to keep him.

But after learning about the scars he started wondering if that was actually true. And now after seeing the meat and the animal parts and the bath bombs…

It was starting to look like all of this was just scratching the surface of something a lot bigger.

And there was still one more thing to check out.

After draining and rinsing the tub, they all went back to the bedroom and gathered around the box again, where Toby picked up the final item inside it, the plastic rectangle.

He turned it over a few times, trying to figure out exactly what it was when it clicked, filling him with a jolt of exhilaration.

“Guys I think this is some kind of book,”

Books meant data, information. Maybe even the answers behind the bath bombs, teeth, and weird meat.

Mary kneeled down next to him “Can you get it open?”

“I’m trying, but there’s a combination lock, and the thing’s completely sealed so I can’t just bust it open with the bolt cutters without destroying it, and--”

They all jumped as a deafening chime rang through the house.

The doorbell.

Toby’s heart shot up into his throat like lightning, beating hummingbird fast as the bell kept ringing again and again.

Hearing the sound shattered his focus like a harsh slap, forcing Toby to remember exactly where he was and what he was doing.

He was in someone else’s house.

They’d come in without permission by breaking into the garage.

They were breaking and entering.

They were committing a crime.

If they got caught it wouldn’t be extra homework or detention they had to deal with.

If they got caught they would get in real trouble.

For the first time Toby knew he wasn’t being melodramatic when he imagined getting arrested and sent to juvie.

Toby shot his head up and saw that the girls had the exact same panicked, horror-stricken looks on their faces that he knew he had on his. From down below the doorbell kept ringing again and again.

The locked book slipped from his hands and fell to the carpet with a dull thunk.

Oh fuck.

“Guys we need to get out of here now!”

They all simultaneously jumped to their feet, Claire practically throwing the bag of bath bombs back in the box, and after fumbling with it for a few seconds Toby managed to toss the book in after it, Darci slamming the lid shut while muttering ‘oh god’ over and over again.

Frantically dragging the box back towards the closet, they figured out really fast that getting the box up was going to be a lot harder than getting it down, especially considering they were all freaking out. After running around like idiots for a few seconds, they got it together enough to hoist Darci up to the attic again, and then raise the box to where she could grab it and put it back, before dropping down from the attic herself.

Meanwhile the doorbell continued to ring over and over, each chime practically giving Toby a heart attack, as they raced around the room, replacing items and shutting drawers and removing every trace of their snooping.

“Claire what the hell are you doing!?” Mary hissed.

Toby glanced over to see Claire standing in the doorway staring down the stairs to where the front door was “C’mon Claire we have to hoof it before Jim and Dr. Lake come in!”

“But...why would Jim and Dr. Lake be ringing the doorbell of their own house?”

Toby, Mary, and Darci all stopped dead

Claire was right, if Jim and Dr. Lake were back they’d just come right in without even touching the doorbell. But then who was ringing it? If it was just a salesman or something wouldn’t they leave as soon as they figured out no one was home? Whoever this was had been ringing the doorbell for nearly five minutes with no sign of stopping.

“New plan!” Mary piped up, voice a full octave higher than normal “Sneak out the back, then circle around through the bushes, act like we’re just out walking and see who it is,”

Toby nodded shakily along with Claire and Darci, leave it to Mary to come up with a plan under extreme pressure.

After double checking and making sure they’d gotten rid of all evidence of their break in, Toby grabbed his tools and ran to the stairs “Quick guys, go go go!”

Not wasting a second the girls scampered down the stairs on light feet, Toby following after, the unrelenting doorbell even louder on the first floor.

They made a beeline for the back door, Toby going out last and locking it behind them. Following them, he ran over to the fence and, in a feat only possible to the insane amount of adrenaline shooting through his veins, hopped it in two bounds and dove into the shrubbery, joining the girls.

“Everyone ok?” Darci whispered, crouching low in the undergrowth.

“Yeah,”

“Uh huh,”

“Yep,”

It was all Toby could do not to collapse, gasping for breath and quivering all over from equal parts relief and leftover panic.

They’d gotten away with it. He was pretty sure they’d gotten away with it. No one had seen them and they hadn’t left any evidence behind. Although they hadn’t had time to wipe their fingerprints off of everything, or get rid of their DNA, hopefully Jim and Dr. Lake wouldn’t realize that their house was broken into at all. And even if they did there was no reason for the four of them to be suspects.

They were fine. No one was going to get arrested.

Although now that the adrenaline was starting to fade, Toby was pretty sure he was going to have some wicked bruises from his landing.

Mary sank lower the the ground, perched on her hands and knees “Keep to the plan guys, let’s sneak around to the other side,”

They all followed her lead, Toby forcing his breathing to slow and become quieter, crawling through the bushes until they emerged on the sidewalk around the corner. Standing and shaking off the leaves and branches, Toby tucking the cutters, hanger, and stopper in a bush to retrieve later.

“Let’s go,” Mary took the first steps towards Jim’s house. A few months ago Toby would have thought she was completely relaxed about the whole thing, but now he could see just how on edge she was.

Toby walked after her, along with Claire and Darci, trying to be as casual as humanly possible without completely overdoing it.

Nothing to see here. Just a group of teens out walking around, as teens did. No criminals here.

He had to try especially hard to act normal as they were heading around the corner of the block, breath catching in his chest as Jim’s house, and the mysterious bell ringer came into sight.

It was some scruffy looking guy, messy looking beard and jeans and a jacket that had certainly seen better days. Not a particularly scary looking guy, but it certainly didn’t look like he was there to sell anything.

Feeling bolder now that they were out in broad daylight and not at risk of being caught mid-felony, Toby came right up to where the front steps met the sidewalk, the girls stepping up next to him, with scruffy standing less than ten feet away. Fidgeting and pressing the bell every ten seconds or so, face crimped in frustration.

Of course this close they should have realized it was inevitable that the mysterious scruffy man was going to notice them.

“Oh hey!” he jogged across the porch towards them, causing them all to shuffle backwards involuntarily “You kids know the people who live here?”

“Why do you want to know?” Mary said warily

“Oh-- I heard from my buddy that CPS has been sniffing around, and Barb took Jim out of the hospital without checking him out yesterday, so I’m trying to see if they’re ok,”

Instantly uneasy, Toby glanced over at the girls, the three of them looking just as tense as he felt. The whole leaving the hospital without being checked out was news to him and definitely not good. But even more alarming was the fact that although this guy apparently knew Jim and Dr. Lake, Toby had no idea who he was. And by the looks of it, neither did Darci, Claire, or Mary.

“So do any of you know when they’ll be back?”

Claire took half a step forward “Sorry but...who are you again?”

“Oh! Well I…” scruffy trailed off, letting out a gusty breath and running hand through his hair “You see I’m--” all of a sudden he cut off and looked over at them sharply, Toby flinching as the man locked eyes with him.

“Toby! Come on, you know me, right bud?”

His heart stopped, blood running cold. From the corners of his vision he could see the girls pull around him protectively “Who are you, how do you know my name?”

“Come on,” the man grinned, as if they were all old buddies “You know me, from back when I used to live here,”

Toby just kept staring at him blankly. Used to live here? The only person he could think of that used to live here was--

No. It couldn’t be.

He looked at him again, really looked, comparing the shape of the jaw, the scraggly beard to the ones from his murky, half faded memories.

“Hang on,” Toby slowly raised a finger to point at the stranger who might not be a stranger “You mean that you’re--”

“That’s right,” he flashed them a smile, painfully familiar now that he could see the resemblance “I’m Jim’s dad,”

#tales of arcadia #Trollhunters #A Secret's Worth #rmvwrites #fanfic #toby domzalski #darci scott #mary wang #claire nuñez #nana domzalski #nancy domzalski

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jujutsu-headcanons · 4 years

Text

Team Tokyo First Years + Mario Kart headcanons

(Ft. Yuji, Megumi, Nobara, you & commentary from Sukuna)

This disaster happened because Yuji was bored. Isn't this how most shenanigans at Jujutsu Tech start?

Yuji was going through old boxes he never unpacked. Yeah, it's been months. He's lazy.

He found this one that he didn't pack himself. He pulled it out of the storage closet when Gojo helped him move from Sendai to Tokyo and he just grabbed it

He wonders what's in it

Its mostly full of cords he has no idea what they go to, a couple of headphones and

uwu what's this

Oh my gOD IT'S HIS WII

This thing is 12 y/o he hadn't seen it in at least 6 does it even still work

Looks like the controllers and cords are here let's plug it in

IT WORKS

Oh god it's so old

Okay what games are there

Just Dance, Wii Sports, Mario Kart, Cooking Ma-

MARIO KART OH GOD THE NOSTALGIA

This was his absolute favorite game to play as a kid

Can you believe he's never played it with anyone else?

He's gotta get the gang here

He texts the group chat and proposes they have a game night

Surprisingly the students answer his text really quick; Gojo seems to be off doing who knows what

Megumi knocks and lets himself in. He's only here because he has nothing better to do. That and if he had ignored the text all Yuji would do is bang on the wall or worse- come to his door

Nobara barges in as usual- why is she carrying so much stuff

Guess who just got free LED lights for their room to "set the mood?"

Uhhh Nobara why are you wearing a tracksuit it's fucking Mario Kart

Oh she's very serious about this

At least she brought snacks

You didn't even read that Mario Kart was involved you just wanted to hang out with Yuji

Okay let's get started Megumi wants to go home even if he is enjoying the bonding time

Nobara curls up in Yuji's bed as if it's her own; Megumi picks a comfy spot on the floor with his back against the bed; Yuji chooses his beanbag chair; you pick [Yuji's lap, next to Megumi w/ your legs across his lap, cuddled up with Nobara]

While Yuji picks out the perfect playlist to play from his speakers, Nobara takes the liberty of going through the Wii.

She has to make herself a Mii it's a rule

This takes like thirty minutes by itself

She edits Yuji's Mii to look more like him (since he made it when he was about eight) and names it Himbo

She makes you a Mii while over-exaggerating your height (by making it very short or very tall) and names it Pookie

She makes Megumi a Mii real fast and names it Cranky BitchBoy

Yuji tells her to be nice

She changes it to Emo Sea Urchin

Good enough

After an hour passes, they're finally ready to play

Except Yuji only put batteries in one controller and he has no batteries

They tear his room apart before finally stealing batteries from his headphones and remotes

Nobara waits until now to announce she can only race with the steering wheel

....and Megumi prefers the nunchuck to motion controls are you fucking-

Yuji tears the box apart and manages to find a fucking steering wheel and a fucking nunchuck

Okay, can we start now?

Mario Kart: Wii!! Wahoo!

Alright; should we play teams or-

"It's bad enough I have to work with you guys in real life, no"

You and Nobara are on team red, the boys on team blue

She makes it very clear she's going to make them eat her dust

She didn't say it that way btw, that's the most polite way of putting it

Yuji chooses Waluigi because he's a meme and makes funny WAAAA noises

Megumi chooses Yoshi because he's a medium character. Medium characters have a field advantage because smaller characters get bumped around while larger characters have drag. Also-

Nobara chooses Daisy because "Damn they made her so thicc".

You choose [character]

Yuji is so eager to play he doesn't care what kart he chooses

Megumi takes forever to decide between a kart or bike and finally chooses the Sneakster

Nobara chooses the Mach Bike bc of how it makes her character look

You choose [cart/bike]

You four argue over what course to do

So you end up taking turns choosing

Nobara pauses halfway through the first race because her character won't fucking turn

Yuji insists it isn't the controller so they trade for one round

Its the controller

Upon further inspection, it was deemed that it looked like the controller had been soaked in some sort of juice

It was the grape soda incident of 2010

Okay gotta get a new controller

Okay it's fixed

Yuji forgot 1) he was player one and 2) he wasn't Yoshi (his normal character) and spent two laps staring at the wrong screen

He still finished 11th. Nobara finished 7th, you finished 3rd and Megs finished 2nd

Yuji ended up catching up really fast until he started showing Nobara tips

See Nobara claimed she knew everything about the game

So Yuji showed her how to flick the remote when she jumped and how to hold the go button down when the countdown was at 2

She rlly did leave him in the dust

Yuji and Nobara lean their whole bodies with the controller while Megumi sits completely still

Nobara gets way into this game I stg she screams and yells and kicks her feet I hate it

She tries to bump your and Yuji's controllers to throw you off

"Noba-chan, I'm on your team"

"I don't give a fUCK STOP BEATING ME"

"IM ON YOUR TEAM"

"AHHHHHHHH"

Slap fight ensues

At some point, Toge comes and knocks on the door because he can hear the screaming from all the way down the hall

"Are you guys...okay?" -Inumaki language

Nobara just complains, so he leaves

You and Megumi are so fucking good at this game

Nobara starts targeting you two with shells until she realizes you're on her team and they don't hurt you

"Truce?"

All you can do is sigh

At some point, Sukuna comes out

He thinks he's a sports commentator

He announces every little thing, like when someone falls or gets shelled

Which always makes Yuji look away from his screen

Sukuna proceeds to bully Yuji for running into walls, falling off, etc.

You laugh but quit when Yuji pouts

Nobara doesn't stop laughing

Despite Yuji being an idiot and having to be carried by Megumi, blue team wins

Nobara throws her controller and screams some more

Yuji breaks out into hysterics for some reason

Megumi sighs. He gets ready to go home but-

"Sit down Fushiguro that was just a warm-up round"

Okay, fine, he'll just beat her again

Nobara pulls you and Yuji to the side

"We gotta beat Fushiguro"

Yuji was bribed with food

No teams this time

"Let's do Rainbow Ro-" "NO"

Daisy's Circuit it is

"Hey Yuu-chan can I play a song"

"Sure name-chan"

"Hey Alexa play Move Bitch by Ludacris"

AHAHAHHAHAHA MOVE BITCH GET OUT THE WAY

This is Nobara's song. She is invincible with this song.

Maybe it really was a warm-up round, Nobara is doing much better this time

She's in first place

It looks like Megumi is getting bored, he's falling back, losing his lead

Now if his calculations are correct, when you're in last place you're more likely to get-

Bingo

"Kugisaki, do you love me?"

"What the fuck, are you going soft on me Fushigu- don't you fucking dare"

"Goodbye Kugisaki"

"STOP STOP HOW DO I AVOID A BLUE SHELL ITADORI"

"YOU CAN'T YOU'RE FUCKED"

"FUCK FUCK FUCK"

Nobara doesn't finish the race due to the fact she is throwing a temper tantrum. She throws her controller so hard she breaks the wheel, controller and puts a dent in the wall

He hides it with a poster btw

Megumi wins.

"Avenge me, name-chan"

"Noba-chan we have one last race we can still beat him"

Nobara is PUMPED

Oh my god when no was looking Megumi chose Rainbow Road

Okay pause

Whoever falls off the most is gonna be the person who fell of the least's bitch for the week

Sinister laughing ensues

In conclusion: Yuji is now your bitch

Yujikuna gets bitchslapped for making dirty remarks

Nobara is the first to tap out due to lack of controller and ends up feeding you chips while you race

You tap out and end up snuggling with Nobara as the boys pull out another game that's two player

You two fall asleep while watching them bicker over which way to go

Megumi pauses the game and the boys just end up scrolling through their phones and talking-

-Until Yuji falls asleep in the beanbag chair

Finally, Megumi can go back to his room...

...Except, you three are so cute

Its kinda like a sleepover

Y'know, he doesn't hate you guys

He's just really bad at emotions

Should he stay

Yuji does have another beanbag he can crash on

...He'll just say he fell asleep going through Twitter or something

Goodnight... Friends

228 notes · View notes

ivanabaqero · 3 years

Text

Since I just returned from rehab, here is my.. idk, emotional journey on my chronic illness + mental health or wtf ever u wanna call this. This is the most personal thing I have ever posted but I need to get it out.

Before you read, I guess I gotta tw this for suicidal thoughts and descriptions of my symptoms.

I don’t even know where to start. It feels like all of this happened in one week and at the same in a span of several years. But no idea, time just kept passing and more shit happened.

Last summer was pretty cool. I worked hard and made a fuckton of money - not really considering the consequences of the fact that I overstepped the boundaries of my body every single day. Either way, I regret nothing it was pretty cool and another experience I am glad I could make. Well, but when I came back home, I started to notice a few things. Among some weird shit nobody wants to know about, I noticed a change of my eyesight. There was a cloud right on the vision on my left eye and it got blurry. At first, it started with minutes and then it passed. But I knew my body responded to exhaustion in an odd way so I let it slide. As doctors have instructed me, only when it lasts over 24 hours it’s an actual episode/flare and I should go to the ER -- to elaborate this further, I have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2015 and have not had any bigger flares since, only the regular symptoms like fatigue, etc.

I got treated with the regular medication; cortisone. This shit gave me some energy boost for a few days and then, things went back to somewhat normal. The blurry thing in my eye has changed into a weird ass thing called nystagmus. Basically, my eyeball was twitching. It was better than the blurry sight and my doctors told me that physical therapy was the only thing to help me with that, and up until some weeks ago this didn’t stop, at the moment it’s gotten way better though - a relief because that caused me mad headache and made reading really difficult.

Anyway, that was the smaller problem. A few months later, in December around Christmas, I have gotten really weak and have been constantly dizzy. As usual, I let it slide for some days. Up until that point when I couldn’t move from the bed or look at anything else but right up at the ceiling or I would get fucking dizzy. Back to the ER again, the same procedure began. Cortisone resulted in a massive push of energy that lasted for some days, but after that, all the symptoms slowly returned. Not only that, but it started to get worse. I have been dragging and limping with my left foot since months but I still managed somehow to walk and get around. In January I had a major panic attack when I noticed that I couldn’t walk on my own to my doctors, which is merely an 8 minute walk away. I had to call my mom to bring me back home because I couldn’t go any step more. My doctor sent me to the ER but the next day, I decided that I was fine and being over dramatic and everything was perfectly fine. The whole thing kept getting worse, I could not walk anymore, I kept feeling dizzy all the time unless I was staring at only one spot: my laptop or phone. So that was what I did, ignore my symptoms. Adding to my chronic fatigue, dizziness, inability to walk and my eye problem, a sensitivity problem spread all over my body from the chest downwards. My hands hurt and my fingers cramped up and got stiff, I lost all feeling in my feet. I had an appointment at the neurologist thank god, or else, I would have let it gotten worse and kept telling myself that I am being over dramatic and nothing is actually wrong. Delusional? Maybe. I don’t understand myself there either.

The neurologist decided to keep me in hospital for a whole ass week, getting cortisone every day. I got in there with the ambulance in a wheelchair and left out of there walking again. Not perfectly, but I thought things were looking up. Of course, once the high dose of steroids begins to wear off and you slowly come down from it, you first catch sleep. Steroids this time have been given to me five days in high dose instead of three and in addition, I had to take pills that I had to reduce slowly over another two weeks. I did not sleep in those three weeks more than 3-4 hours per night and then I finally could. To make this more understandable; my brain was tired but my body was buzzing. I also had a tremor that has still not entirely left me as a wonderful side effect from the medication.

That time stationary they finally put me back in a MRT and found 2 bigger new lesions. One of them in my cerebellum and the other in my spinal cord. Each of them causing me all those massive problems. Back at home I had physical therapy every day, but despite all of it, I had to rely on a wheelchair. I got my wheelchair in march and named him Otto because he is the best man ever. Next time in hospital, I was mentally and physically just fucking done and tried to just ignore how much my mental health was going downhill along with my body, the neurologist offered me stationary rehab at a very well known center where they treat several physical as well as mental illnesses. I said yes, and luckily got a place in July.

The initial plan was to stay there for four weeks, but the doctors suggested to extend to six. I did. And good that I did. I made slow progress. Very slow. To imagine, in twenty minutes at the first day I could barely walk 130m with four breaks in between, with walking aid and what not - and my last day I made 640m in the same time with no breaks. I know this doesn’t sound like a lot but fuck -- I made it out of a fucking wheelchair. I am walking again. Not perfectly or any good, but my legs are used for their purpose again; to get me through this world. For someone who loves hiking and going for little walks alone, this was such a big deal to just not be able to anymore.

The day I had the panic attack was the day I realized that in 2015 I made a promise to myself that if I ever have to rely on other people, I would end it. But I felt selfish for not wanting to end it. I felt selfish for wanting to live and being a burden to people. I know, none of this is my fault and I am the first to give good advice, but am I good at handling my own shit? Absolutely not.

With all the physical therapy I did for six weeks every day, I also had a psychologist that helped me understand myself better and deal with the trauma this experience brought me. I have to find another psychologist at home as well, because I didn’t feel the one I have helped me at all. I had to make a lot of promises to myself, such as accepting and asking for help and that it’s no shame in doing so. I feared losing my independence and I still do. But fuck, this experience was an eye opener in so many ways. I made new friends in rehab as well, which was one of the coolest things. And I got hit on by two attractive men - can you believe? I was in a wheelchair, dressed like absolute shit and not making any kind of deal of how I look! But yeah, my interest wasn’t really there to get involved in anything. I’ve got a lot of love to give but I need to give it to myself rather than pour it out on someone else.

I learned so many lessons, about my body and about my mind. My brain is an idiot and I have so many fears I was never even able to see until now. I thought optimism could beat everything and well... while it helps me a lot to get through every day life, every now and then I just need a slap in the face to look at things in another light. Not everything is fine if you tell yourself it is, no, you are not over reacting and you are allowed to feel sorry for yourself when life is dealing you a bad card. It doesn’t matter that other people have it worse -- it doesn’t mean your own shit is any less valid. And with that, I am going to wash my face and stop crying. I am still in a shock of reality state because I am back at home now and everything is different. And I got to admit, I feel a little lonely. But I don’t want to reach out to my old friends at the moment with whom I felt like the “sick friend”. I want more friends in similar positions as me so I don’t have to feel bad for... well, feeling bad, and I don’t want to hear any more optimism monologues from healthy people who have absolutely no idea what it is like to have chronic pain, fatigue and overall; an illness. Whether it be mental or physical.

If you really read all of this, thank you. There was no need to, but I appreciate it. I honestly just needed to let it out. Because I haven’t done so properly since all of that started.

#shush vanana #uhh #no tags i am lazy

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braiawrites · 4 years

Text

Lost & Found - Chapter 4

Summary: A glimpse into Pellia's story. || Inspired by this prompt by @newblood-freya

Words: 2046

Rating: sfw

Warnings: Minor mention of blood.

Links:

Fic Masterlist

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FIVE

Prompt by newblood-freya

Read it on AO3

Writing Masterlist

Send me an ask!

***

“Alright, fine. I’ll figure it out myself,” the mortal said, her eyes dark under a scowl.

Pellia watched as she turned, Cardan perched on her shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. She hadn’t necessarily meant to harm him when she’d changed him into a cat, but from the way the girl clearly coddled him, she thought perhaps she’d done him a favour.

Cardan twisted to look back at her in the cramped confines of the cell. He gave her a slow, haughty blink—probably because he couldn’t smirk—before settling himself like a scarf over the human’s shoulders.

Pellia did the only thing one could be expected to do in response to such an insult: she flipped him off, and then, for good measure, stuck her tongue out at him too.

He flicked his tail before turning away, and Pellia threw her arms up with an exclamation of defeat.

“That was so unnecessary,” she called after the retreating form of the cat prince and his human. Neither of them turned back.

With a sigh, Pellia retreated to the palette at the back of her cell and sank onto the bed. She felt the prickle of tears at the corners of her eyes, but she tried to push them down, blink them away, something. She couldn't cry, not here, not now.

If any tears were to be shed, they wouldn’t be hers. She’d vowed that to herself six months ago, when she’d crossed the sea from Delaware to Faerieland. She’d come with steel in her hands and poisons at her belt. With fury in her eyes and vengeance on her heart. She had come with one purpose and one purpose alone: to take back what was hers, what he’d stolen.

And until she recovered what she’d come for, she had vowed that she would not weep.

You will not cry, she reminded herself. You will not cry, you will not cry—

“You will not cry.” The words were carried from her mouth on a trembling breath, a mantra and a promise and a plea, torn from so deep in her heart that Pellia was certain her next breath would be crimson with blood.

Her thoughts fell again to Cardan and the girl, her skin burning bright with shame as she realized she had never actually seen them leave. She hoped they hadn’t heard her.

Oh, yes, she thought bitterly, because that would be all she needed: the cruel prince and his nosy human girlfriend, seeing her at her weakest. The cherry on top of her melting sundae.

She laughed at the thought, and then laughed some more, because there was something churning in her gut and clutching at her heart, and if she didn’t laugh at the pain then she’d cry and she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that.

No matter how much it hurt, no matter how bitter she felt or how hot her rage burned, she could not cry until she was free and back home in Delaware, until she was safe and her family was whole again.

~ ~ ~

She’d known a storm was brewing from the first time she'd met him. It had been a Wednesday evening and the wind blowing off the coast was warm with the promise of summer. Pellia had been walking home from school, her slender fingers skillfully weaving a crown of wildflowers. Beside her, her younger sister talked animatedly about her day: the presentation she’d given in science class, the book her English class was starting, who she’d talked with at lunch.

Neither of them noticed the figure following twenty or so paces behind them.

Pellia tucked the last stem into the crown and turned it in her hands, admiring her handiwork as Amber changed topics.

“So, in drama we’re doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I’m going to audition for Titania. I think I’d make a good Faerie queen, anyway, but I was thinking maybe you could help me act all magical and Fae-like.”

Pellia looked up from where she was fixing a rip in a flower petal. It was a small magic, but Amber’s eyes sparked as she watched the petal knit itself together.

“I’ll never get tired of seeing you do that,” she sighed. “I wish I had magic.”

Pellia’s brow lifted. “Faerie isn’t as innocent as you think it is, love.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I didn’t say anything about Faerie,” Amber pouted, “just that I wish I had magic. I dunno, I think it would be cool.”

“You have your own kind of magic—the power of being the bane of my existence and also somehow my favourite human.” Pellia’s shoulder bumped Amber’s in a playful jostle.

“You flatter me, oh great pain in my a—”

“Hey! Watch your profanity.”

“My profanity!”

“Mhm.”

“You have the dirtiest mouth I’ve ever heard from anyone. And you’re telling me to watch my language?!”

Pellia let out a breathy laugh, shaking her head. “Nevermind.” She paused, lifting the flower crown in her hands. “For my Queen Titania. I spelled it so it wouldn’t die.”

Amber took the circlet almost reverently holding it up to see each vibrant petal in the sun’s light.

“It’s shiny,” she pointed out. “Is there a glamour on it?”

Pellia gave her sister a lopsided grin. “A little. I tried to tone it down a bit, but—I couldn’t resist. It’ll glamour you, too, when you wear it.”

Her younger sister said nothing for a moment, just staring at the crown—and then a huge grin broke across her face, brighter than a thousand suns.

“I love it, Pell, thank you.”

She lifted the crown to nestle among chestnut locks, letting the leaves weave into her hair. As soon as they touched her head, she seemed to glow more vividly, her eyes sparkling and her skin smoothing and her cheeks blushing a warm pink. She beamed at her older sister, then shoved her off the sidewalk.

Pellia squeaked as she flailed to catch her balance. Her eyes, glamoured brown, met Amber’s mischievous hazel gaze.

“I just made you a flower crown, bro,” Pellia said, her shock mingling with amusement.

“Yeah, and I love it!”

“Well, you’re a little brat, you know that?”

“Love you, too, Pell!” Amber sang, spinning gracefully to continue the last stretch of their walk home.

Pellia shook her head—and that was when she saw him, out of the corner of her eye.

Wearing a long, dark shirt, tied at the waist with a golden sash, woolen leggings despite the tepid weather, and leather slip shoes that clearly had not come from the human world, he was impossible to mistake.

How long had he been following them? Pellia wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She turned, casually, and started after Amber’s retreating form at a stroll, before breaking into a jog with a call of, “You’re going to pay for that! And for making me run!”

Ahead, Amber cackled. As Pellia caught up to her, she elbowed her sister in the side, grinning.

“Hey, so guess what?”

“What?”

“Well, act natural, and don’t look, but there’s someone trailing us.”

Before Amber could follow the natural inclination to glance over her shoulder, Pellia slung her arm around her little sister’s neck and leaned in.

“I said don’t look. Now pretend I said something funny.”

Amber laughed. It was actually very convincing—she was a good actress.

“You’re kidding,” the younger girl chuckled, bumping her older sister with her elbow.

“I wish I was. But something about him makes me uneasy. And he’s fey, too, which pretty much automatically means bad news.”

“How would you even know that?”

“I saw it!” Pellia said, pulling out her phone. “Like, I turned around and he was just—right there. I swear!”

Opening her camera, Pellia angled her phone to better see their stalker. She made a show of checking her hair, her makeup, eyes glued to the figure in the background. She zoomed in. The hilt of a sword peeked over his shoulder.

Definitely not peaceable, then, she thought. Pellia made her decision:

“We're not going home.” She pulled her sister by the arm, turning a corner away from their house.

“I think you're being a tiny bit paranoid, Pell,” Amber said, attempting to pull away.

“No,” the pixie shook her head. The buildings on this street were tighter, packed together with cramped alleyways between every couple.

They approached an intersection and Pellia pointed to the building across the way. “Go, inside the gas station. I'll come get you in a sec.”

“Fiiine.” The younger girl pouted, but turned away.

“Hurry!” Pellia hissed, and Amber jogged across the empty street.

Rushed footsteps came from around the corner, and Pellia ducked down one of the alleys, dropping her bag and pressing herself against the brick wall.

She listened, trying to quiet her breathing.

The steps ceased abruptly. Pellia reached for the cord around her neck, pulling it from beneath her shirt.

The dagger she unsheathed was small, but definitely better than nothing. She tucked the sheath on its cord back beneath her shirt and adjusted her grip on the hilt. The leather was smooth beneath her fingers, the blade glinting sharply.

The footsteps resumed, cautiously.

Their owner came into view, looking the wrong direction. Pellia slipped from the alley and slid behind him, the edge of her knife held to his neck as pulled him back into the shade between houses. At his struggle, she pressed the blade against his skin.

“I don't know which part of Faerie you're from,” she purred into his ear, “but in the court where I grew up, it was generally considered rude to follow people like that.”

She shoved him face first into the wall, her hand between his shoulder blades. “So? Who are you and what do you want?”

“I was just sent to gather intel, I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. His voice was higher than she’d expected and his throat bobbed under her blade as he spoke.

“I’m so reassured.” The sarcasm dripping from Pellia’s voice was fatal. “Who sent you?”

“I—I can’t say,” he said.

“You might wanna try.” Her blade pressed in.

“Oath!” he squeaked, flinching away from her. “I took an oath, I cannot speak his name!”

Pellia’s brows went up at this. To hold that kind of power over someone…

“Why does he want to know about me?”

“I don’t know,” the fae whimpered. “He doesn’t tell me these things. I only know what I am to do, never the reason.”

She rocked back on her heels, allowing her grip to loosen on his collar. Her mind was racing, trying to fit together the insubstantial pieces of this puzzle. She hadn’t dealt with anyone from Faerie since they’d fled to the mortal world. She didn’t know how she’d been found, let alone why someone would be tracking her in the first place.

“Please don’t kill me.” The words came out as little more than a breath, but they sent a little thrill through Pellia’s stomach all the same.

She laughed. “Kill you? This is a new shirt, I don’t want your blood all over it. Besides, I need you to take a message back for me.”

Her captive nodded, his cheek scraping against the brick.

She leaned in. “Tell your boss that if he wants to know something, he can come talk to me himself. And in the meantime, he can stay out of my business. Oh, and you might also let him know that I hold grudges; the next person he sends to ‘gather intel’ won’t be coming back.”

At the faerie’s promise to leave immediately, Pellia released him. She watched as he headed back toward the coast, flinching at a passing car. What had been the point in sending someone to trail her, especially someone so obviously out of his depth in the human world?

Pellia shook her head. She hoped this would be the end of it, but something deep down told her that it wouldn’t be over so simply.

Two weeks later, she returned home to a dark haired, silver-eyed prince in her living room. Her family was out.

“My greetings, Pellia Nerium,” Balekin Greenbriar said. “Have a seat. I have a proposition to discuss with you.”

***

A/N: This chapter was so much fun to write and I developed Pellia's backstory so much, which I was kind of not expecting. I feel like I'm discovering what happens next along with all of you haha! I do hope you've been enjoying so far! I promise cat!Cardan and Jude will be back next chapter.

Thank you for sticking around every week to read, it honestly makes me so happy to know that there are people who are enjoying my writing. And if you have the time, I would love if you left a comment to let me know what you think! Also, please let me know if you'd like to be added to my tag list!

Until next week, lovelies!

Tagging: @stardustsroses @nahthanks @jurdanhell @my-one-true-l @thefolkofthefic @greenbriarxrose @bookavert @queen-of-demons-and-hell @theviolettulip @lysandra-ghost-leopard @playlistmusings @localgoof @garnet-babe @iamaprincessallgirlsare

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occasionaloneshots · 3 years

Text

You Belong With Me (Reddie’s Version)

Warnings: toxic relationship, swearing

Closeted bi Richie x closeted gay Eddie

Words: 1.7k

“You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset.. She’s going off about something that you said, ‘Cause she doesn’t get your humor like I do.”

Eddie was bitter. Quite frankly the boy wondered if bitter was even a strong enough word. But he stuck with it, down right lemon sour, bitter. Richie was supposed to sleep over, just the two of them, like old times. But of course his girlfriend had to go and throw herself in their plans, it seemed like she always did. Eddie swore that the girl had it out for him, hell she had called his house to talk to Richie. So now, while Eddie sits across from a paused movie that he was never really interested in to begin with, he gets to listen to Richie trying to explain himself over nothing. At least Eddie thought it was nothing, nothing for Richie at least.

“No, baby, come on please don’t be like that,” Richie’s vice floats in desperately from kitchen. Eddie didn’t have to be in the room to see the exhaustion on the boy’s face. “It was just a joke, you know I love you more than anything.” If Eddie was right, Richie was scrunching the phone cord in his hand, he always seemed to do that if he was getting yelled at over the phone. Maybe that was an exclusive thing for phone calls from his father though, as he got chewed out for being late to leave or forgetting to call and say he would be staying for dinner. “I’m sorry okay? I’m so sorry I’ll never joke about that again, I swear.” Eddie scoffed, it’s not like she was involved in the joke, it was a joke about the losers. As far as he was concerned, Richie’s bitchy girlfriend would never be a loser, no matter how many times she invited herself along. If she doesn’t want to hear Richie’s crude jokes about Eddie’s mom, she shouldn’t invite herself to hang out with him and Eddie. Everyone knows that’s his thing. Why even get with a trashmouth if you just want to change him? Sure the joke wasn’t funny, but that was Richie. (If Eddie was honest, he slowly began to find Richie’s mom jokes funny, but maybe that was a cheap stab at his mother.)

The dark haired boy wonders back into the room, falling back on the couch beside Eddie, “I’m sorry about that. Do you wanna finish the movie?” Eddie looks back at it for a moment, a random frame of Wayne’s World (Richie’s choice) staring back at him. “Not if you don’t want to, we could just go do something else,” Eddie plays with his fingers as he talks, looking up at the taller boy nervously. He wasn’t sure what made him so nervous about it though, maybe it was just knowing that Richie was upset. “Yeah, let’s just go to your room or something?” Eddie nods, turning off the tv as they stand up. Richie collects the blankets they were using off the couch, throwing them over his shoulder as Eddie grabs the popcorn bowl. It’s pretty quiet as they make it to Eddie’s room, both throwing themselves on his bed seemingly exhausted despite the fact that it was only nine-thirty. Suddenly Eddie jumps up, walking over to his bookshelf. “What ya doin’, Eddie Spaghetti?” Richie’s head lolls to the side, watching as the smaller boy scans the shelves. A red CD case resting in his hand as he opens the CD player on the shelf. “Don’t call me that, Rich. You’ll see.”

“I'm in my room, it's a typical Tuesday night, I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like”

Meer seconds after Eddie closed the player, a familiar song began to boom out of the speakers. The opening cord of Ramones “Censorshit” making Richie’s face light up, “Is that my copy of Mondo Bizarro?” “It’s mine now, you gave it over, remember?” The dark haired boy rolls his eyes, getting up off the bed. “I didn’t give it to you, I let you hold on to it. Heidi hates this type music, she kept complaining about it so I wanted someone who would take care of it to watch it.” Eddie shrugs, “Gave it to me, told me to take care of it, same difference.” Richie didn’t respond though, instead, putting his arms out in front of him, pointer finger up on each hand like he was trying to silence a room, before breaking out into a dance. His curls flying around his head in a way that made his face hard to see as he moved. It was not a good dance, but one that had Eddie smiling and jumping around with him nonetheless. They were on the twelfth before they were exhausted enough that they had to sit back down. Both boys sitting with their legs crossed on opposite sides of the old bed, laughing.

“God,” Richie pants, “I forgot how good that album was.” “Yeah, because all you’ve been listening to is Madonna,” the words ended with a scoff as Eddie shook his head, “You hated Madonna until you got with Heidi.” Richie stops mouthing the lyrics of “Heidi Is a Headcase” to scoff, “I still hate Madonna.” Eddie shakes his head, “Why are you even with her anyway?” He was mentally cursing himself the moment e said it. Eddie you fool, you absolute fool.

“'Cause she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts, she's Cheer Captain and I'm on the bleachers”

Richie simply shrugs in response, “I don’t know.” This leaves the other boy stunned for a minute. “You don’t know?” Richie had options, so many options, there was no reason for him to be with someone who makes him miserable, at least not one his friend could see. Richie got hot in high school, everyone knew that as much as they hated to admit it (especially Bill, who was a little too used to being the hot one of the group). He basically sprung up a whole foot the summer between eight and ninth grade, his face thinning out to reveal a sharp jawline and prominent cheekbones. He had that whole pretty boy thing going on which earned him more than a fair share of female attention, and even his fair share of attention from other guys, though they weren’t as open about it.

“I don’t know, I mean, she’s the cheer captain and I guess that part of me just wants what comes with that? But I want her too you know, even though it stresses me out. What would happen to me if I left her you know? We’re not really true losers anymore, I don’t want to drag the rest of you back down with me.” That was another thing, Richie started going to games just for the half time show to watch her cheer, dragging Eddie with him, and any other loser if he got the chance. Eddie sighs, shaking his head, “You wouldn’t become a total loser again, Rich. You’d just have every girl in the school throwing herself at you.”

“And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town, I haven't seen it in a while since she brought you down”

Richie laughs, a dry laugh that was no where near his normal one, “Yeah right, maybe I’ll go for Greta Keene next time. Fuck myself up in a different way.” Eddie scrunches up his nose, “Yuck, why would you say that? Greta?” “What?” Richie smirks, leaning over to shove his shoulder, “Is she your girl or something?” Eddie lets out a whiney groan, “That was the seventh grade will you please let it go?” In a game of truth or dare Eddie admitted to lied about having a crush on Greta and Richie hadn’t let it go since. Eddie never talked about things like that, it wasn’t his thing. So of course the scrap Richie had, he would use. The taller boy burst out laughing, a genuine smile flashing across his face in a way that made Eddie smile too. “Dude you’re the one who did it.”

When the boy finally calmed down, Eddie gave him a soft smile, ”Seriously though, why don’t you break up with her, Richie? Cheer captain is not a valid reason to stay with someone.” “The rumors she would spread are a valid reason to stay. I don’t know if I would be able to handle that.” Eddie scoffs, leaning back against his headboard, “Who cares about rumors? Bev survived them, you could too.” Richie shakes his head, “I believed the rumors about Bev back then, the whole school did.” “That’s because you’re a fool, Rich. Seriously, you think anyone would care about the rumors she’d spread? What’s she gonna say? You have a small dick? Stan says that all the time,” Eddie shakes his head, “She’s not good for you Richie.” I could be though, the thought clouds his mind, though he’d never admit it out loud, Eddie was crushing on Richie so hard it was embarrassing. Some of the losers saw it though, just like how they saw his crush on Bill back when they were younger. At least, Bev and Stan did, though they’d never admit it, outside of the two of them, but Eddie was paranoid that Mike knew it too. If Mike asked him why he looked so upset while Heidi was on RIchie’s lap one more time, the boy thinks he might combust. “Come on Eds, even if I wasn’t scared about rumors, who else would be willing to deal with me anyway? I’m lucky she even puts up with me.” And that made Eddie frown, “Rich,” he reached out, grabbing Richie’s hand, “The right person loves you, they don’t just put up with you because you’re hot.” Richie lets out another dry laugh, “Yeah, like someone out there is like that for me. Girls like that exist for Mikes and Stans, not me Eds.” Eddie shakes his head, watching as Richie pulls away, getting up to look in the mirror. “ think there’s someone out there like that for everyone. I mean, my dad loved my mom, at least as much as I remembered, and she’s my mom.” Richie shakes his head, “I guess you’ve got me there. Hey, maybe mine is also your mom.” And despite the fact that it was cheap, Eddie laughed at it. Mind barely holding in the words “what if it’s me?” Because, Eddie knew he wasn’t ready to open that can of worms yet, and Richie was no where near the right place for that.

‘All this time how could you not know, baby? You belong with me, you belong with me”

#Reddie #richie tozier #richie trashmouth #eddie kaspbrak #eddie it #it 2017 #it fanfiction #taylor swift lyrics

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consumedkings-archive · 3 years

Text

THE LAND OF GODS AND DEVILS, a sequel.

—part i.

word count: 6k

rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.

warnings: naughty language, massively canon-divergent, roman gets his own tag because he's a fucking nutso, canon-typical violence, established relationship that might not be the healthiest, age gap, domestic murder family. for this chapter in specific, roman likes to take things to the Extreme (i.e., "i'm going to fucking kms if you say this word one more time") but if you're here i imagine you know exactly what he's about.

notes: it's here! i know that most of my followers and friends on here are my friends through my far cry 5 content, but my return to the fic-writing world was inspired by my first longfic in a decade after watching birds of prey. you could say, perhaps, that i have a Type(TM), given that roman sionis lives rent free in my head forever and always. this is the sequel to my work carry your throne, though i like to think it's fairy user-friendly, especially once we really get into the thick of it.

special thank you goes to my beta and the loml, @starcrier; the first person to ever truly recognize varya for the wretched little beast that she is and love her anyway. thank you for being my beta and for loving my girl!

and, of course, another special thanks goes to @shallow-gravy, @vasiktomis, @faithchel, @tomexraider, and @belorage for being so supportive of my foray out of the far cry fandom and back into one that, in a way, brought me here in the first place!

summary: —by dread things, compelled.

roman sionis is the closest he has ever been to having everything that he wants; a perfect wife, a perfect family, a perfect international black-market arms dealing business signed over to him in its entirety. unfortunately for him, there are people in the world who would prefer to see him without, and that has never been a thing that roman has accepted for himself: being without.

(or: a fic wherein the devil spends his time rebuking sin.)

“If one more person says the word ‘chandelier’ in my presence,” Roman announced, drawing all eyes to him, “I'm going to blow my fucking brains out. Got it?”

There was a brief moment of silence that lapsed before the murmured acquiescence of the workers marked their return to their work. Blowing hot air from his mouth, Roman raked his fingers through his hair and turned back around to where Zsasz was watching him expectantly.

“What?” He demanded. “It’s my wife’s birthday.” Emphasis on the my, not the wife; it was not a favor Roman was doing for Varya, it was something he was doing for himself.

“V told them she wanted it.” Zsasz gestured to the offensive piece of lighting, which continued to haunt Roman’s waking and dreaming hours with its garish crystalline drippings and expensive bulbs. Ever since Varya had found out his fluctuating approval of the chandelier, it had been in and out of the Black Mask Club more times than he could count. Not that he needed to; he could very well put in or rip out a stupid fucking light fixture as many times as he wanted.

“Well.” Roman pulled a glass out from behind the bar, setting it on the top and dropping an ice cube into it. “She does so love to torture me.”

“It's just a—”

“Do you want my fucking guts on the floor, Zsasz? I mean it. Say the word and I’ll do it.”

The blonde regarded him drily. “No, boss.”

“Blood and guts everywhere.” Roman gestured widely with his free hand. “All over the floor. The bar top. You’ll have to clean it up. Maybe wipe down some of the bottles.”

“I won’t say it.”

“I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to get blood out of the carpet.”

Zsasz’s mouth quirked up in a smile. It said, without saying anything at all, no, you don’t. More agreeably, and with the flash of pearly whites and the capped tooth: “Sure.”

Roman poured well over what would have been considered the polite amount of expensive scotch into his glass, capping the bottle and setting it aside. It had been exactly twenty-four hours of making sure the club was perfectly polished and styled for Varya's birthday; though she was shrewd, she was so preoccupied with the twins and the lawyers and overseas business associates that she barely seemed to notice whatever was coming in and out of the Black Mask Club. He didn’t think she’d had a baby nor a phone out of her hands in over two days, and truthfully, it was starting to become tedious. Now that the twins were a little over a year old, they were supposed to be scheduling their honeymoon.

The delay of it hadn’t been a big deal, at the start. But everyday with you feels like my honeymoon, Varya had demurred months before the twins’ arrival, fluttering her lashes and gliding her fingers along the lapel of his jacket—and not even an hour after she’d curtly informed him that any more chatter, while she was nursing a headache, would be met with a swift and efficient extraction of his vocal cords by her own hands. Motherhood was supposed to have domesticated her, Roman thought, and had done the exact opposite; now, she was more assured of her status and power than ever.

So, yes; Varya had been busy, and he was almost certain she’d forgotten her own birthday. Never mind that everything had to be perfect. Never mind that it had to be immaculate. Never mind that Varya had deigned to order a brand new fucking chandelier from the same place they’d gotten one last time, knowing full well that he had made the executive decision to gut the fucking thing and get it out of his club.

“Tell you what, Zsasz,” Roman muttered, taking a swallow of the amber liquid in his glass, “don’t ever get fucking married. You want someone knowing all the shit that pushes your buttons all the time?”

“Maybe you just got a button pusher for a wife.”

Roman grimaced and took another swallow. It was true. “Fuck off.”

The blonde opened his mouth to say something else—and hadn’t he gotten confident in himself too, since Varya had become such a permanent fixture in their life, constantly goading and coercing him to voice his opinion on things, things that normally he would just defer to Roman on—when the doors to the stairwell and the elevator opened.

Eclipsing the doorway was Armazd, Varya’s hand-picked-from-the-batch-of-Russians-left-over-guard. Armazd had to be easily cresting six-foot-five, his dark beard neatly trimmed and peppered with silver, a scar breaking the color of his top lip. Roman had only ever seen the man swathed in dark clothes, like a fucking mourner on parade. His wife had been the one picked to be the twins' nanny, despite the fact that Roman felt like she barely did anything.

Also hand-picked. Thoroughly vetted. Interrogated for hours. No stone left unturned, when it came to Yuli and Ro.

“What are you doing down here?” Roman barked, coming around the side of the bar to make his way across the room. “You’re supposed to be going up and keeping—”

“She is coming down,” Armazd clarified. “In the elevator. Irina called to tell me.”

“Instead of stopping her?”

“She was—”

The elevator dinged in the hallway, and Roman quickly ducked around Armazd and closed the door into the club behind him. As soon as the doors slid open, he planted a smile on his face and closed the distance between himself and his wife.

Nobody would know, looking at Varya, that she not only barely utilized the nanny that they had furiously vetted and now paid handsomely, but that on top of juggling their twins she was actively in the process of getting a massive, international gun-running business signed over in his name. There was not a single hair out of place, not a single crease or rumple in the sapphire-blue silk of her blouse or skirt; the scent of her preferred jasmine perfume followed her like a cloud. She looked as put-together as the day he’d first seen her standing in his club.

And now, he desperately needed her to stay out of it.

“Kitten,” he greeted warmly, his hands—though gloved—immediately scratching the itch by reaching for her; they captured hers to carefully still her procession to the club’s main room. “What are you doing down here? I thought you’d be busy for hours.”

“Yuliana has been fussing nonstop,” Varya replied, her voice light despite what could only have been an expression of frustration quickly following, “all while I listen to grown men fussing nonstop at me on the phone.”

Roman feigned a sympathetic noise, bringing her hands up to his mouth to kiss them. “We have a nanny, V.”

“You know better than anyone else,” the brunette murmured, brushing her nose against his as their hands dropped, “that she is inconsolable without you.”

He tried not to look too pleased. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Don’t be modest, Romy.”

“Well, I’ll come up, of course.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “And console our princess.” Another kiss, to the other corner. “So that you can continue letting grown men fuss at you.”

She beamed at him prettily, and finally they met in the middle for a real kiss—nothing coy, nothing demure, but lingering warm and just between the two of them.

“I love you,” she purred. “Go on, then.”

And then Varya pulled away, as though to go around him and into the club, and Roman blinked rapidly. He had only just caught her around the waist before she could walk in and pulled her in a full one-eighty until she was facing the elevator again.

“What are you doing?” she asked, a laugh bubbling out of her. “I was just going to make myself a drink.”

“Encouraging productivity,” Roman replied, hitting the button for the elevator doors to open again. “Ready for all this paperwork to be done, aren’t you? It’s been over a year.”

A year of wading through mafia-esque bureaucracy. A year of listening to Varya say, these things take time. A busy year, to be sure, jam-packed full of things—the biggest wedding in Gotham since its founding, the twins.

A funeral.

Roman tried more and more every day not to think about his (now) brother-in-law’s funeral, the double burial of the only man that might have stood a chance at being loved by Varya more than Roman himself and the only man who had ever been anything like a father figure to her. Family is tedious, he’d wanted to say, brothers and fathers and mothers, the whole lot of them, cut them loose why don’t you? Why should anyone matter to you outside of the twins and I?

Varya glanced at him over her shoulder. “These things take time.”

He rolled his eyes. “Mhm.”

“Not to mention, we were a little busy,” she added, eyes narrowing playfully as he nudged her into the elevator, “you know—having children.”

“And what beautiful children they are.” Roman hit the button without looking, the doors sliding shut behind him.

“Well, how am I supposed to suffer through those phone calls without a stiff drink?”

He quirked a brow upward. “I’ll make you a stiff drink, Mrs. Sionis.”

The brunette propped herself up against the back rail of the elevator as it whirred into motion. The corner of her mouth, painted ruby, curved and her head tilted inquisitively. “Oh?”

“Of course,” he demurred, sidling forward and boxing her in against the wall. “I’ll make you a stiff drink—”

He dropped his head to the slope of her jaw to plant a kiss there.

“—you’ll finish up with the lawyers, and put on the dress I bought you—”

Varya hummed and sighed sweetly.

“—we’ll go out to dinner for your birthday—”

He dropped his hands to her hips, planting a kiss on her temple so that he could rumble, “And we can get to work on baby number three, hm?”

A sweet laugh billowed out of her just as the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open to bring to Roman the oh-so-sweet sounds of a caterwauling infant. Over the distressed crying was Irina’s voice, shushing and cooing dulcet words in Russian; he could see her swaying to and fro with a swathe of fabric bundled in her arms.

“I almost forgot about my birthday,” Varya said thoughtfully, completely unrattled by the sound of their daughter’s distress. She stepped out from between him and the elevator wall; Roman fell into step beside her easily, the sound of her heels clipping against the floor enough to draw Irina’s eyes to them.

Roman said, “I know you did,” and did not bother to hide his smugness as he held out his arms for the shrieking baby in Irina’s arms. The redhead regarded him with a sort of weary amusement before she acquiesced; with Yuliana safely in his arms, he watched Varya cross the room to turn the automatic rocker that held their son back on to a slow, lulling pace. The freckled infant babbled happily—ever the quieter of the twins—and as Varya said something to Irina in Russian that inspired the woman to depart to the kitchen, she absently picked up a baby blanket from the couch and wandered over to him.

“Yuli,” she murmured, waving her finger at the already-content infant, tucking the blanket around her “is that all you wanted, hm? Just for your papa to hold you?”

“What else could she want for?” he replied confidently. Soothing Yuliana’s fury had become old-hat for him at this point. And, certainly, it pleased him to know that sometimes, the only thing that would make his daughter stop screaming was being held by him. Not even Varya—who had taken to motherhood like a fish to water—bothered when she was in a fit.

Still, the brunette sighed dreamily, her finger captured by their daughter’s tiny hand before she said, “What a perfect little gem.”

Roman hummed his agreement. “Finishing that call with the lawyers?”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Varya replied. “They’re in a mood today.”

“They’re in a mood every day.” Russians, he thought venomously.

“Yes.” She smiled, flashing pearly teeth at him. “But only today is my birthday.”

She had him there. Still, he was itching for the whole thing to be done—Ilarion had dragged his feet through the process of even drawing up the original contract, which had only been a spit in his face (“You are the only person who gets to fuck Varya Astakhova, that is as exclusive as it gets”) and by the time all of that nasty business had been wrapped up, Ilarion was dead.

Ilarion, and Nikita—leaving only a single living soul to be in charge of the Astakhov empire: Varya herself.

Which, she had expressed time and time again, she had no desire for; not in the public way that her father had done it, and Ilarion after them. She much preferred the clerical work of it all. Paperwork and public relations. Let the men do men’s work, she’d demurred one night, tangled up in their sheets, when he’d asked her what she was going to do with it. I don’t mind. They like me better as their madonna, anyway.

“You know,” she continued, breaking him out of his thoughts as she made her way to the bar cart, pouring herself a drink, “they will like you more if it’s you they’re talking to.”

“I don’t give a fuck if they like me or not,” Roman replied, lifting Yuliana with both of his hands so that he could look at her. “Isn’t that right, princess? Mommy gets to do all the paperwork so that your papa can spend all of his time with you, instead of listening to some dumbfucks bitch and moan on the phone.” He glanced at her. “Well, anyway, since it’s your birthday we can let it slide.”

“Very generous of you.”

“Get dressed, won’t you?” he prompted, depositing his now-content daughter in the mobile swing with her brother. “The table’s been ready for us since noon.”

Varya watched him, dark eyes glittering amusedly. “And why, my darling, did you make the reservation for noon? It’s nearly six now.”

“Because,” he replied, “I wanted to make sure they held it, regardless of how long it took us to get there.”

“Ah.” She lifted her chin a little, lashes fluttering with contentment when he reached up and brushed the hair from her face. “Or else?”

Roman flashed her a grin.

“Or else.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They held the table.

“Good for them,” Roman said as they followed the server out onto the balcony. The table had clearly been refreshed—a new candle, a new vase, a new bucket of ice and bottle of champagne. He’d heard the waitstaff whispering furiously among themselves as they idled in the lobby to be taken to their table; now, settled across from the birthday girl, Roman was content with the way they had squirmed.

“Quicker than the two-hour wait last time,” Varya noted by way of agreement, smoothing her hand along the edge of the tablecloth.

He scoffed. The only reason they had waited in the lobby for two hours was because Varya had asked him to stay for the table she wanted. If it had been his way, they would have left with a bloody warning and gone somewhere else. “I can’t believe I finally convinced you to leave the twins home for a night and we got stuck sitting in that fucking lobby because they gave our table away.”

“In my defense, they are good babies, Romy. Hardly ever cry. Certainly not too much trouble.”

“But there’s two of them,” he replied, “and toting two babies around is a lot of work. All I’m saying is, what’s the point of paying her that much fucking money if we’re just going to—”

The waiter came by the table, clearly a little stressed; the lines of concern on his face were clear as he cleared his throat and said, “Should I come back?”

Varya, perusing the menu: “No, my darling, you may stay. You were saying, Romy?”

“I just don’t know why we’re shoveling money into her bank account for her to be a glorified accent chair in our house rather than a nanny.” Roman gestured to the champagne bottle expectantly. “Open it.”

The waiter did as he asked, having been standing there uncomfortably for a moment during their exchange. As he worked to carefully open the champagne bottle, Roman turned his attention back to Varya; her eyes remained on the menu, absently twisting the engagement and wedding band on her finger back and forth.

There was no way, he thought, that she was putting off getting the business signed over to him on purpose. Surely, there was no way; even when Ilarion was alive, even when she had anticipated no further problems, it had always been, if you’re going to be my romantic partner, it seems only right you’d be my partner in business too, don’t you think? And yet—

And yet, Roman could not push down the strange, hazy doubt that occasionally flickered through his mind. He had always wanted Varya, had always found himself wanting and wanting and wanting more and more often, and Varya had always seemed content to indulge him. There was, it seemed, nothing she enjoyed more than indulging him. One more kiss, one more minute in bed, one more lingering glance across the room. She was the absolute pinacle of his hedonism, in every sense of the word, and had proven time and time again that she would give him anything that he wanted.

The business had always been for her and Ilarion. He wanted it, and told her he did, and she said, you can have it, if you like, but like in all things, there was a slyness about his wife—a cruelty—that he found endearing and dangerous. Dangerous, because it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d been on the other end of her cruel nature, playfully poking and unwinding and tugging the thread loose until she had pushed him to the limit.

Something echoed in his head, and he realized that the waiter was asking him what he wanted to eat. Varya had handed the menu over and steepled her fingers, watching him with dark, curious eyes and red painted lips, sooty lashes fluttering. A pretty, painted little snake.

“I’ll take whatever she’s having,” Roman said after a moment, setting his menu aside and returning his attention to the brunette across from him. “Something interesting, kitten?”

“Can I not just appreciate my husband?” Varya demurred. “You’re wearing the suit I like best, after all.”

“It is your birthday. What greater gift is there than me?”

She laughed, delighted by him—as she always was—and took a sip of her champagne. “You were away from me, for a moment.”

He watched her, gauging her carefully. Even I know not to drop my pants when a viper opens its mouth, Bianchi had said, just before Varya had unloaded six rounds into his face and chest less than two feet away from him.

“Just thinking,” is what Roman said finally.

“Hm. A dangerous past time.”

His expression flattened, deadpan. “It’s taken a significant chunk of time to secure your father’s business in my name.”

Something flickered across Varya’s expression. at the word father. “To secure my business,” Varya replied, her voice abrupt and cutting, her eyes narrowed, “in your name.” Absently, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked to be composing herself, like she’d spoken on a knee-jerk reaction rather than with thinking.

Then, glossy and silken again: “You know your patience means the world to me, Romy.”

There was nothing that he loved more than watching her pull back her venom for him. Drumming his fingers against the top of the table, Roman bridled his own irritation to say, mildly, “I’d do anything for you. Even wait...” He made a thoughtful noise. “Over a year to finally take on the responsiblities you wanted handed over to me.”

“Of course.” Varya smiled prettily, absently straightening out her silverware. “And we will speak no more of my father on my birthday, or any day after this.”

He knew what that meant. She phrased it pretty, wrapped it up in silk and velvet and presented it to him as unassuming as a doe, but he knew what that meant. There is my button, she was saying, there is my trip wire. Don’t push it, Roman. The name Nikita had all but been banned in their household, even when funeral arrangements were being made; any time he’d heard one of the lawyers mention her father’s name, there had been a sharp rebuke. Not in my presence, she would tell him later, I do not want to hear that fucking name in my presence.

“At any rate, there is nothing that I want more than for this whole process to be done,” she continued lightly, reaching across the table to take his hand. “It was always what I wanted, you know. Ilya was better suited to be a functional piece of the business; he was the face because he had to be, not because he wanted to be, and I am better suited for the nitpicking and the details. Being the overseer is much more in your circle of talents, Romy.”

Her words assauged something unsettled and prickly in him, the sweep of the pad of her thumb across the back of his hand returning that doubtful monster in his mind back to its slumber. He sighed.

“You’re right,” he acquiesced after a moment, “it is more in my circle of talents.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“I always got the impression Ilarion wasn’t happy with it,” he added. “Though you two certainly enjoyed making work of me that first night, didn’t you?”

Varya smiled demurely. “It was never meant to make work of you, only to make a good impression.”

“Hm,” he replied, eyes narrowing playfully, “but you enjoy pushing me, V.”

She looked pleased. She always did, when he remarked on something that felt like he was really seeing her, beneath the glossy veneer. His girl did so love being seen.

“Only,” V demurred, “because you so enjoy reining me in.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Roman brought her hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it before relinquishing it and glancing around. He would just have to exercise patience, of which he had the most; patience, modesty, and humility, all excellent qualities that he could participate in at will, at any given time. Without any restraint.

“Did the men get the chandelier installed?” Varya idled, snapping his attention back to her. He narrowed his eyes.

“I told you I didn’t want a chandelier anymore.”

She looked at him across the table, dark doe eyes wide and innocent. “I thought you liked how polished they make the club.”

“No, you little viper,” Roman replied, clicking his tongue, “Paolo has a chandelier in his club, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to have people comparing it.”

“Ah,” she murmured, “the drama of the chandelier goes on.”

“And while we’re at it, might as well gut that one from the estate, too.”

“There’s more than one chandelier in there.”

“Then the men will be busy, won’t they?” He tsked his tongue. “I know you dream about watching me blow my top, V, but I’m making an executive decision on gaudy light fixtures.”

A smile flashed across her expression, pearly teeth and delighted eyes. She sighed, almost dreamily, like there was nothing more that she liked than to be doing this exact thing, and with him.

“Oh, Romy,” the brunette said sweetly, “you are the only thing I dream about.” And then, almost as an after thought: “Gaudy light fixture terrorism included.” She waved her hand to dismiss any protest or rebuttal he might have given her and said, “Now, since it’s my birthday, tell me all of the things you love the most about me.”

Roman sucked his teeth, eyeing her for a moment as he leaned back in the chair. Wicked little thing, waiting to preen and glow under his attention, a feline seeking him out. Her little bout of cruelty before was already forgiven. He said, “We’re going to be here for a while, if I do that.”

“They held the table for over six hours,” Varya demurred, “I’m sure they’ll hold it for as many more as you need.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

By the time they got to the club, Varya was acting as though nothing had happened.

Truthfully, Roman preferred it that way. It just also left a lot of room to wonder—his wife was a talented actress, adept at smoothing his ruffled feathers out and not divulging her own feelings on the matter. And he wouldn’t ask, of course. If Varya wanted to express herself, she would, and had, quite openly in the past.

“I am so happy to be home,” she announced, gliding past the door to the club once Roman had opened it for her. “Do you think the babies are asleep, yet? I always miss putting them...”

Her voice trailed off, pausing a little as she seemed to realize that the club was cloaked in inky darkness, freezing just a few steps past the threshold. Roman let the door swing shut behind him, nudging her forward with a hand at the small of her back. He was met with some resistance; she steeled, stiffening against his insistence, before taking a few steps forward.

He said, barely keeping the delight out of his voice, “You’re holding up the line, V.”

“Roman,” Varya said, her voice pitched oddly soft and tight, “why—?”

The lights flashed on to a loud, unified cheer of Happy Birthday!; the club had been packed with vases of flowers, the tables donned with food and drink, and everyone worth their salt within a fifty-mile radius had made their way there. Not a single thing was out of place—everything exactly where he had instructed it be placed, and not a fucking chandelier in sight.

Roman came around in front of the brunette, grinning. “Happy—”

He stopped. Varya’s expression was not happy, or even surprised; it was something else, something that he couldn’t read, the pupils of her hot-whiskey eyes blown wide and the normally Renaissance-soft lines of her face sharpened and hardened into an expression that was more vicious.

“V?” he asked. Her eyes snapped to him, and for a second she looked the same way she had that night in the loft, her hands drenched in blood and the kitchen knife clutched in her fist with bodies at her feet: like she didn’t recognize him.

It took a heartbeat, but her expression smoothed out and she smiled, almost sheepish—like she’d been caught doing something naughty, instead of being caught being somewhere else. Someone else, more the wolf than the girl.

“The lights,” she explained, hands resting on his chest, “they startled me, is all.”

A frown creased his expression. He brought his hands up to hold her wrists, thumb pressed against her pulse point. It fluttered unsteadily. Unconvinced, Roman pressed, “The lights?”

“Just the lights,” Varya assured him. She tilted her head up and kissed him, one hand departing his jacket to go to the back of his neck—and when she kissed him, he could feel that strange little flicker of energy, like she’d been stamping something out before it could catch, but it still vibrated under her skin.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but she disentangled from him and swept around to the crowd of people waiting, beaming prettily and playing at bashfulness, as though she did not enjoy their eyes on her and did not soak their attention up like a flower did sunlight. Whatever had been plaguing her in that moment was now gone, and she was awash with attention and love, thanking people profusely and accepting each hug and cheek-kiss directed her way.

Roman brushed off the odd feeling that she wasn’t being as forthcoming with him as he would have preferred—no secrets anymore, isn’t that what they’d agreed on?—and instead waded into the crowd. Music kicked on overhead; chatter picked up to a warm humming around them; there was nothing else to think about except letting his girl enjoy her birthday celebration.

By the time Varya had made a suitable number of rounds (which tended to verge much higher than one, much to Roman’s chagrin—what tedious work, to share her with everyone else), she had barely sipped the glass of champagne someone had planted in her hand. She circled back to him eventually; like always, there was that pinprick tugging in the cavity of his chest, like they were bound by a single thread that kept them from parting too much and too quickly, and when she drew closer to him again it oozed relief, warm and vibrant, through his ribs.

“Sufficiently loved on?” he asked as she neared, hand reaching up to slide around her waist.

“By them? Certainly.” The brunette’s hand smoothed along his shoulder, the pad of her thumb gliding across the velvet of his jacket. “By you, though, not hardly. Not ever.”

“You are insatiable,” Roman agreed in a rumble. He splayed his fingers against the small of her back, tugging her in closer and brushing their noses together.

“Just for you,” Varya murmured, and the words brushed their lips together just a little—but everything with Varya, like this, felt like almost-kissing, enough to push him to some kind of edge where his stomach twisted and wrenched with want when she added, “And only for you.”

“You know I can’t resist you when you talk like that.”

She laughed, leaning in to set her glass to the side and curl her fingers into his shirt for a kiss; everything for a second felt normal, and good, and right again, the strange way she’d gone-away back in the doorway having disappeared, the dark cloud over her having cleared, her wretchedness from dinner dissipated.

And Roman kissed her, with the sound of the party chatter ringing in his ears, and kissed her with the faint taste of champagne flooding his senses when she parted her lips against his, and kissed her while his hand fisted the fabric of her dress and he managed out in a voice rough with want, “So you’re trying to rile me up.”

“I always,” Varya murmured against his mouth silkily, “want you riled, Romy.”

“Varya?”

A stranger’s voice filtered through the haze—the rose-colored one that usually accompanied Varya saying anything like she wanted him riled up—and Roman felt the irritation spike straight through it. He turned to look at the interruption at the same time that Varya did, only to find a young, handsome blonde standing just a foot away.

Varya said, sounding faint, “Maxim?”

“It has been a while,” the blonde said, and he sounded sheepish. “I called Armazd, asking after you—”

“Sorry,” Roman interjected briskly, fingers still curled—now possessively—into the fabric of Varya’s dress against the dip of her spine, “but who are you?”

His wife started to say, “Romy, this is—” at the same time that the man began, “I am sorry, my name—” and they both stopped at the same time, a strange little silence stretching between them.

“Maxim,” Varya said after a second, turning to look at Roman now. “This is Maxim. He is Artyem’s son.”

Roman stared at her, more to buy himself time than anything; she said the name like he was supposed to know who that was. Artyem, but it didn’t sound familiar. Almost any Russian name sounded like gibberish to him, and if Varya had said it to him, it had been in passing, an afterthought, nothing but a whisper of information passed between them before it was gone again.

Until it did. Until he remembered that the person Varya had thought was her father had actually been Artyem, that she’d poisoned him, let him bleed to death on the carpet while she had mentally checked out of the moment. That she had watched him die, but she had been somewhere else—someplace else, the way Ilarion had described it, very far away where she couldn’t even enjoy what she’d done fully.

And Maxim—golden, and polished, and clean-shaven—looked awfully pleasant for someone whose farther had choked to death on his own blood because of Varya.

“I see,” Roman said, even though he didn’t. His gaze turned to Maxim. “And you’ve—shown up without calling ahead?”

“I have been in Turkey,” Maxim explained, “finishing up some business, and I did not know how to get in touch—”

“Well, you spoke with Armazd, didn’t you?” Roman’s head tilted. “The man practically sleeps in our bed, I imagine he would have been happy to get you in contact with us.”

“Admittedly,” Maxim said, “I wanted it to be a surprise—”

No, Roman thought absently, venomously, that won’t do at all.

“—Varya’s birthday—”

“So you slunk in,” Roman elaborated tartly, “like a little street dog, hm?”

“Maxi,” Varya interjected, fingers absently tracing the stitching on Roman’s jacket, “why don’t you go get a drink and acquaint yourself with our friends? Armazd is just there—you see?”

Maxim’s eyes darted between her and Roman for a minute. He shifted on his feet, tilting and giving a little smile that might have liked abashed if Roman didn’t think he saw a little squirm of self-satisfaction in his gaze. Fucker.

“Of course,” the blonde replied after a moment. “C dnyom razhdyenyem, Varushka.” He took a step forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Varya’s thumbnail dug into the lapel of Roman’s jacket. “Thank you, Maxi.”

Once the blonde had departed, linking up with Armazd in the crowd to get introduced, Roman straightened up from the bar. It was impossible not to stare at this newcomer—he glowed with an easy charisma, flashed bright smiles that were all teeth. Roman hated him already.

“Maxi?” he asked her, eyes narrowed, and Varya sighed. He waited for her to elaborate. Perhaps she’d say they had dated once, perhaps they were literally nothing. That would be ideal, after all. Ships passing in the night.

She said, “We grew up together.”

Even worse. Roman twisted a loose, dark curl of hers around his finger. “And you killed his father.”

“Well—” She paused, mouth pressing into a thin line. “He does not know.”

“He doesn’t—” The notion that she was keeping secrets, and not from him, coiled high and happy in his throat. He tried not to sound too delighted when he said, “V, surely he knows.”

“Surely he does not, that I did it. Only that it happened. And I will keep it that way,” she added firmly, picking up her champagne glass from the bar top. “Maxim was incredibly loyal to my father because Artyem was, but more than that—he was mine and Ilya’s friend. I’m sure he is missing Ilya almost as much as I am.”

“As we all are,” Roman agreed sagely, planting a kiss on her temple in spite of the dry look she gave him. It was hard to tell, to get a read on this Maxim. What was it he’d dragged himself out of the trenches for? Just to fly halfway across the world to wish Varya a happy birthday? Above all things, Roman understood that his wife was a desirable thing, and knowing that he kept her out of the reach of others was part of her appeal—but that much? Could someone who was just a friend want that much?

He continued, “So what is it that Maxim offers to the business, hm?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Varya demurred, which didn’t sound at all like the truth. “Artyem was the one who sent him out on jobs. My father kept things tight around the top, you know. If anyone would know what it was Maxim was up to in Turkey who wasn’t my father or Artyem, it would have been Ilarion.”

“I find it hard to believe you have no idea what your father was using someone for.”

The sound of delighted commentary drew both of their eyes away; Irina had come down, both dark-haired infants in her arms, and was walking them toward Varya and Roman. Murmured remarks on what could only be their cuteness passed throughout the crowd of party-goers.

“I am putting them down for bed,” Irina announced as she approached, “and I know you like to say goodnight.”

“Oh, you are an angel,” Varya murmured, glass set aside once again. She leaned in, pressing a kiss to baby Ro’s cheek. Yuliana babbled, and she sighed dreamily, “Have you ever seen more perfect babies, Roman?”

Perfect babies, a perfect wife; soon, he would even have the perfect grip on Gotham’s neck, throttling it until it was nothing but dust and ash. Soon, but not soon enough; he’d be content when it was just done and settled, when there was nothing else standing between him and everything that he wanted. Varya, and the guns—what an odd thing, to know that a year ago he’d set out for this and it was just falling into his lap.

“Romy?”

“Never,” Roman replied, smiling and glancing back at his wife, reaching and cradling the back of Yuli’s head. “I’ve never seen more perfect babies, V.”

Across the room, Maxim watched them. There was something about it that Roman didn’t like—the way his eyes flickered, the way he looked between the children and Varya, the way their eyes met and he didn’t deflect away. Like he didn’t mind getting caught. Where had he come from? What little shithole had he crawled out of, over a year after Nikita’s death and Ilarion’s death—longer, still, since his father’s death? Hadn’t he wondered what had happened to his father?

What are you doing here, he thought venomously, that you think you can just come in here like nothing? Like I won’t root you out like the little rat you are?

Maxim smiled. It was a polite smile, unassuming kind of smile.

Roman picked up his drink from the counter, taking a heavy swallow. Suddenly, the evening seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of him, no finish line in sight.

Nothing else standing between me and everything I want.

And he was going to keep it that way.

#birds of prey #birds of prey fic #roman sionis x original female character #ch: varya astakhova #ch: roman sionis #ch: victor zsasz #roman sionis/original female character #my writing #fic: the land of gods & devils #me sweating profusely posting this #i am really excited about this though and i want to really really thank everyone who has been supportive of me pursuing this!!!!#creeping up on varya's birthday and also the one year anniversary of CYT making me super emo #<3 <3 <3

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